


Goalie

by kitkattaylor



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, British, Bullying, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, Gay, M/M, School, Smut, queer, teenage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-03-08 11:00:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13456824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkattaylor/pseuds/kitkattaylor
Summary: The thing is, everyone thinks they know everything about Dan. They hear enough about him. But they don’t remember the boy who hid in hoodies, who was soft-spoken and embarrassed. They were never witness to his self-doubt, to his neediness, never had the privilege of seeing his genuine smile, his uninhibited laughter.Of course Dan had changed, but Phil would be (might be) damned if he didn’t believe there was something of the boy Phil used to know still inside him.





	1. Square as a biscuit

**Author's Note:**

> Your typical teenage love story? Totally spontaneously written? I have NO plan! (let me know if u want more)

When you’re in year 8, kids start to think they’re a bit cool. You look at the year 7’s, who are more backpack than body, and they’re like new-born fawns to you. You wonder how you were ever so small as you tower over them and laugh at their backpacks (they did take the space of a whole other person in the lunch queue.)

Phil, however, never thought he was cool. Not in year 8, and not in year 6, when you’re top of the school for the first time. He was one of the kids that people called ‘young for his age,’ and he didn’t mind it. It wasn’t that he wasn’t aware of his growing up, in fact he was hyper aware of it. He had, for example, cried profusely at the Simpson’s episode when Bart goes to throw all his toys away in a cardboard box. Phil’s had been moved to the attic, after some stubborn protest that Phil’s future children would enjoy them, and that the aliens of 3007 needed items for their 21st century exhibition. He told himself the toys (stuffed in a bin liner) had secret parties in the attic, otherwise he got sad.

He didn’t like growing up, really. He hated when his mum wrote things like ‘can’t believe you’re in double-digits already!’ or ‘time goes so fast!’ in his birthday cards. But he accepted that it was happening. Only he didn’t see why he couldn’t just be himself, instead of yearning to be an ‘adult’...which everyone else seemed to do.

In year 10 you could audition for the ‘upper’ school play. The _big_ productions, with the months of rehearsing and the cast of mostly sixth formers. That’s year 12 and 13. The main roles go to the year 13’s because it’s their final year before leaving to...university, or whatever other big, scary, adult, real-life things they might do. Phil wasn’t thinking about his own ‘career’ yet. He’d only just decided on his GCSE options, and that was mostly an eenie-meenie-minie-mo decision.

In year 10, Phil was very settled with his small group of friends. They had their bench for break-time and lunch, tucked away beside the Maths block, as far as possible from the football field. They cycled home together and often carried on their conversation once indoors over headsets while playing video games. They had pizza nights and movie marathons and hung around the parks in summer, playing bands through their phone speakers as they lazed around the swing-set (only when the older, stoner group of boys and girls weren’t there.) They didn’t get invited to the parties everyone talked about on Mondays at school. People didn’t know them by name.

He’d never really joined any clubs, or partaken in many extra-curricular activities (other than the school trips, which were 8/10 to the local nature reserve, 2/10 to France.) Some lunch breaks he and his friends would spend in the science lab with their favourite teacher, Mr Turner, who was also their tutor and ‘David’ to them, freshly graduated and always spinning in his spinny chair. He let them perch on the desktops and conducted fun experiments with them. Oftentimes, they went wrong. He also had the best Christmas parties. While other tutor groups got puzzle games or Finding Nemo, Phil got doughnuts and karaoke.

Never had Phil auditioned for the school play. But in year 10, there he and his friends were, dressed as giant playing cards.

The play was Alice in Wonderland. Except, because it was the ‘upper’ school play, the teachers had put a dark twist on it where Alice was in fact in a mental institution. Either way, all Phil and his friends did was don the red tights (yes, tights) and giant foam playing cards (Phil was the ace of diamonds) and dance around the stage, except of course it was more organised than that. Three weeks into rehearsals, after Phil had been told off twice for knocking over the pyramid of cards (the human sort), the cast got introduced to the band. Phil had on the initial foam draft of the playing card, but had tied the knot too tight on his back, so as the band shuffled in to the main hall where the stage was, Phil ended up awkwardly sat in between his friends, square as a biscuit, his face poking out like the moon. Not one pair of eyes didn’t glance to him.

The teacher’s voices echoed in the hall as they talked and then came the mass sound of pages turning. Phil, as a playing card, didn’t have a script, so he and his friends sat in silence as the band begun to play and the cast read along. Without much to do – other than awkwardly twist his arm behind him to continue to try and waggle the knot free – Phil found himself people watching. He thought on people’s hair styles (counted the girls with Cheryl Cole red dye), observed the expressions the band members made when playing their instruments (particularly the brass section, he tried not to giggle), and then he took notice of the piano player.

It was a quiet scene. Alice was tip-toeing somewhere, whispering something, crying about something... So the piano had a brief solo. The hush of silence seemed to wash up louder into Phil’s ears as the soft, melancholy tinkle of the piano keys tentatively drifted into the air. Phil tilted his (rectangular) head as he watched the boy. He had his blazer on still so Phil soon noted that he was in fact in year 9. Phil wasn’t sure if the year 10-and-up rule applied to the band as it did the cast, but looking round again the piano boy certainly looked the youngest.

When his solo got overtaken by a cymbal crash and sudden, suspenseful, strings, the boy shyly drew his hands away from the piano – which seemed far too big and grand for him – and bit his lip. He withdrew his hands into his sleeves (he looked to be wearing a hoodie beneath his blazer, not the standard v-neck jumper) and raised his eyes to the rest of the band, listening carefully. Phil being Phil, wasn’t being subtle about his staring, and hadn’t realised how long he’d been watching the boy. He was wondering whether he looked like the same round-faced year 7 who’d tripped over onto the canteen floor, spilling tomato pasta all on his shirt as he was pointed and laughed at by the adjacent year 8 table, until Phil had hurried over and picked him up and coaxed him to the boy’s bathroom (even if he was too old for the year 7 one), dabbed the tears from his eyes and told him not to worry about it... He was just thinking that _yes_ , it was definitely him, when the boy himself turned and caught Phil staring.

He blinked once before fixing his gaze back on the piano. Phil (being Phil) couldn’t help but stare a moment longer at the top of the boy’s head before averting his eyes to the opposite wall. He watched the white paint intently, because a hot blush of embarrassment was creeping up his neck and making his hands sweat. Phil didn’t have a good memory, and yet he recalled that the boy’s name was Dan.

A month went by without seeing Dan again (it was a big school), and then suddenly he was seeing him everywhere. They’d had another run-through with the band (it was two weeks till show-time), and this time it was on a Saturday, so everyone had bought pack lunch and had a break come 12. Phil had gathered with his friends in the left wing behind the red curtain, snacking on Monster Munch and Lucozade, when he noticed Dan sat, legs dangling, on the edge of the stage. If you only looked once, you’d assume he was sat with the band members, who were all cross-legged beside him. But looking as Phil was, it was obvious he was eating alone. Phil couldn’t exactly be described as confident, so what he did was stuff another monster foot in his mouth and chew guiltily. But after rehearsing act 2, with the drama teachers calling rehearsals over, Phil hung back from his friends, saying he needed something from his art draw (none of them did art, so they didn’t know that Saturday Club wasn’t a thing), and dawdled outside the music room. Totally subtle.

Dan didn’t have instruments to put away, unlike the others, but maybe he was helping. Phil hadn’t considered Dan walking out with his own friends, and Phil having to awkwardly muscle his way in, or pretend he hadn’t been waiting at all, and when he did consider it he momentarily panicked. But then the doors opened, and Phil skipped a few steps back so it looked like he’d only just walked up. Out poured the string section and the brass section and whatever-else-section, and then nothing. And _then_ Dan. Dan flicked his hood up and pocketed his hands and stepped quickly down the corridor. Phil quick-stepped after him, not intending to jog up beside him to talk, but that’s what he did.

“Hi,” he smiled, a bit breathy. Dan, who was shorter, glanced at him in what seemed like horror, before fixing his eyes to his feet and replying with a tiny ‘hi’ back.

Phil watched their feet too as they traversed the blue and green plastic circles that made up the floor. He was about to speak again when he noticed Dan’s pace had picked up and he was ahead of Phil shouldering through the doors. Phil jogged up beside him, again, and almost said ‘hi’, _again_.

“So I think I know you,” was his brilliant opener. Dan, somewhat defensively, lifted the strap of his shoulder bag higher, holding onto it as he (somewhat reluctantly) fell into step with Phil.

“On like your first or second day you tripped over in the canteen and got pasta everywhere and I helped clean you up.”

“Oh god,” Dan breathed, flicking his eyes to Phil. “Why do you have to remember that.” He had a slither of a polite smile peeking out from his hood.

Phil batted a low hanging branch of a tree with his hand. The newly green leaves rustled with annoyance.

“Pretty memorable, Dan, you looked like the victim of a slasher film.”

There was a tangible pause. Then Dan lifted his bag strap again (Phil wondered if the contents of his bag was heavy) and spoke, or rather mumbled.

“It was kind of you to help.” Then, as if in doubt he’d already said it: “Thank you.”

“No worries,” Phil replied, dragging out the ‘S’. He ducked his head a little to try and see Dan’s face better.

“So you’re good at piano.”

It was truly exceptional conversation. Except, it did the trick, because Dan’s reaction was the most animated he’d been yet.

“I’m really not.” He shook his head. His voice was less of a whisper now, so Phil could hear the real tone in his voice. “Miss just told me to stop messing up.”

“She said that? You’re messing up?”

It was two questions. Dan glanced at Phil, who was quite heavily leaning forward now in his awkward attempt to see Dan. He straightened up at the acute shock in Dan’s eyes.

“I didn’t notice.”

“I did.” Dan twisted his fingers in the sleeves of his hoodie. He was drowned in the garment, all black and too loose on his chest. It made him look skinny, but in reality he was all soft angles, not too far removed from his year 7 self. He’d probably be appalled to hear that. He was stockier than Phil, and less bony. His hair was thick and curled up at the ends, fluffy, unlike Phil’s straight strands of near ginger hair. His cheeks were rounded, and his eyes large and soft. Like...marshmallows in his face. No. Like chocolate. Because they were brown.

“...She said I need more confidence, that she wouldn’t have put me up for it if she didn’t think I was good enough, but I don’t know...”

“She’s probably right.” Dan kicked a small pebble along the pavement. “I mean, I think you’re very talented. I couldn’t do it, like-“

Phil held out his hands, motioning them in the way you play a piano.

“Show me your hands?”

Dan frowned directly at him. It was the longest he’d looked at Phil.

Cautiously, Dan lifted his hands, letting the sleeves fall back on his wrists.

“Yeah, you have piano hands. That’s what my gran would say.”

They’d somehow simultaneously come to a stop on the street. Dan focused his eyes on his hands, then shook them and balled them into his pockets.

“I actually don’t. I have fat fingers.”

A light breeze picked up around them. Phil only now noticed he’d been walking in completely the wrong direction to his house.

“My gran’s physic,” Phil declared, turning back from where he’d swivelled to observe the row of houses.

Dan was still stood facing him. Slowly, a genuine smile nudged its way into his cheeks. It pulled into place a pair of dimples, and Phil remembered the younger boy sat up beside the sink, tear-streaked and lip wobbling, the giant-ass rucksack lolling at his feet.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

His big brother (who had always been cool) said that the age gap went away after sixth form. What felt like huge, gaping gaps of maturity between a year 7 and year 8, or year 9 and year 10, would go away. But right then, Phil didn’t feel like a cavernous valley was looming between their bodies. In fact, he reached right across the gap and pointed his finger at Dan’s nose. Later, he’d drape unceremoniously over the kitchen table and try to bang the entire incident out of his brain. But at this point in time, he stared down at Dan intensely and said in a silly voice, “My gran knows all”, as if it explained everything.

Dan had gone a little cross-eyed with the gesture, and when Phil pulled back he looked dazed. He blinked quickly and Phil noticed his bottom lip had become unstuck with his top.

“So she knows that you do indeed have piano hands, that you are, in fact, _Piano Dan_ , and that you are destined to tinkle those ivories forever.”

“...Right.”

Talk about age gap; right then Phil felt like the younger one.

“Which way you going?”

Dan gestured behind him to the connecting road.

“Oh, um, that way,” Phil eventually replied, pointing to where the road they’d been walking on continued. It was entirely opposite to his house.

Dan lowered his arm and nodded, looking down at the ground. The large hood fell forward on his head and for some reason Phil itched to push it down.

“Well-“

“-It was nice walking with you, Dan.”

Dan stopped scuffing his shoe against the pavement. He lifted his head and both his lips parted, hesitantly.

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

It was only then Phil realised he’d said Dan’s name twice, and how that was probably very weird.

No – he’d said it _three times._

The tops of his ears burned red.

“It’s Phil.” He could have bullshitted that he’d heard the music teacher say it, but Dan’s lips hadn’t closed and it was very distracting for some reason, too distracting to form coherent excuses.

“So I’ll see you?”

And he did. He bumped into him on the walk to school (where, having approached from most definitely not the road Dan had last seen him exit on, he had to explain that the previous time he’d been walking to his dentist), and then he saw him coming down the stairs in the art department as he went up. He saw him three people ahead of him in the lunch queue. He saw him leaving assembly. He saw him helping his music teacher carry books. He saw him alone in the library, alone walking past where he sat at lunch (he ended up walking back on himself, who knows where he’d initially been walking to.) He caught him in goal playing football, and Dan caught Phil watching. He knocked on Mr Turner’s door one day, shyly asking if he’d accidentally left his planner in the room. He had.

The next Saturday they had rehearsals, Dan sat with Phil and his friends. Or rather, Phil dragged him over, quite literally by the elbow. He didn’t talk much at first, but then Phil and his friends got nerdy and turned out Dan was just as much as a geek. His smile was so big and hypnotic when he was enthused. And he talked really loudly. And fast. He still hid his hands in his sleeves and looked on the verge of tears once (twice) at the piano, but he was now the first to wave when passing in the corridors, and he hesitated less to tease Phil or ramble openly (he was very smart), and pretty soon he was at Phil’s house on the weekends. Phil’s friends teased Dan at school like four big brothers, but Phil wasn’t sure he felt like that.

By the end of year 10, Dan and Phil had what seemed like an infinite thread of MSN chat logs, and Dan had shyly told Phil he considered him his ‘best’ friend. They didn’t much talk about Dan’s own friends in year 9. Phil knew he got bullied. Phil didn’t exactly say it back – a year ago Jon would have been no1 best-friend candidate – but he bopped Dan on the head when he began to say ‘it’s okay if I’m not yours’ and pulled Dan with him as he lay back on his bed. Dan, swamped in his hoodie, curled on top of his chest (they’d done this before) (Phil pulled down his hood, briefly resting one hand in his hair) and they continued their level on Donkey Kong, heads turned to the side where the TV was (Dan’s cheek smushed on Phil’s chest as he breathed in and out.)

Only in year 11 – call him a late bloomer – did Phil think about it again: how Dan curled on his chest so casually, how when video chatting on MSN Phil made sure he looked good beforehand, and continued to check his appearance on screen. Dan used to hoist him legs up on the office chair, crossed at the ankles, and pull his hoodie right over his knees, blinking doe-like at the camera. He’d always be fluttering his lashes, or fixing his hair, and once when his dad walked into the computer room, he flinched and closed the MSN tab, as if there was something to hide.

He was always complimenting Phil, then getting embarrassed about it. Asking Phil why he hung out with him, why he liked him. Secretly, Phil thrilled at Dan’s shyness. He loved when he got a chance to tell Dan otherwise, to compliment him back and reassure him. He loved feeling equal, but secretly he loved feeling older. He really, really, loved the way Dan doted on him. He was _the coolest person Dan knew_. He said that.

Dan sprinted up to Phil after the first show had finished, squashing the sides of his Ace of Diamonds costume until Phil (gently) held him at bay. “I played it perfectly,” he’d beamed, hopping a little with excitement. “Well, apart from that one section after-“

“You did,” Phil said, pressing his fingertips a little into Dan’s arms.

They smiled at each other in silence. Well, the room was very noisy, with the hum of the crowd walking out and all the parents gushing to their children, the dads with the video cameras... Dan’s parents hadn’t come. Dan clung to Phil’s side (not literally, though when Phil went to get changed he did actually pout) while Phil met up with his parents (his dad did have a video camera.) They drove Dan home after they’d mingled long enough with the cast and teachers (mum was melodramatically worrying at the wheel that she’d had one too many plastic cups of cheap wine.)

“You boys were so great!”

“Phil was majestic.”

Dan’s smirk lit up with each passing street lamp. His eyes were still like marshmallow. Chocolate.

“Shut up,” Phil mumbled, no bite, sinking into the window and resting his chin on his hand. Dan’s smile widened from across the car seat.

“Aw, it’s so great you two became friends because of this. I hope you stay friends.”

This was only two weeks into their friendship, but Dan was already only shy when he remembered he should be. When they’d drawn up to Dan’s house, he unbuckled his belt, thanked Phil’s mum, and then lifted his hand, like when Phil had talked about piano hands, or like a really bad impersonation of Spock. Phil hesitated, before realising he must be asking for a high-five. He mirrored Dan in anticipation, but instead Dan grabbed Phil’s hand and squeezed it. The door shut with a slam and Phil watched through the pool of darkness as Dan skipped up to his front door. His mum lingered to see Dan inside safely, and Phil let his hand linger where it had dropped on the middle seat. His heart was beating up against his chest. Well it’s not like someone had ever done that before.

It’s spring again, and warm enough that Phil and his friends have ventured onto the grass. The three of them (Jon, and his two new friends who’d moved for sixth form) all have a free period, and decided to sit outside to study. Though what they’ve ended up doing is laying their books open in their laps and playing on Nintendo DS. It’s also warm enough that the year 11 boys are playing football shirtless. Some of them. Dan Howell jumps to catch the ball and his P.E. shirt rides up, briefly revealing the boy notches on his back, at the bottom of his spine, and his lean, tanned, skin. He lands with a grin and pushes a hand through his sweaty fringe. He’s done something right, because the boys on his team barrel into him, all sweat and mud, and punches. There’s whooping and a short stint chanting his name, the girls too, who are skiving off their own lacrosse lesson, smoking. Phil supposes he’s happy for him. Mostly he’s happy no one kicked the ball far enough to knock the glasses from his head. They’d probably cheer for that too.

When the bell for lunch rings, Phil purposefully waits until the football boys have exited the field, slowly gathering his things before venturing to walk inside. He can hear them making noise round the corner of the gym building and starts walking faster. The teacher is shouting and then there’s the whoosh of a ball being kicked. The teacher barks at the boy, and the boy is Dan, jogging onto the path Phil is walking. He stalls instantly, and the ball rolls horrifically slowly up to Phil’s feet.

“Oi, pass it, mate!” Dan’s friend. Gel-slicked hair and a map of freckles. He’s not even looking at Phil as he says it, he clasps a hand to Dan’s shoulder and looks back to laugh along with some friend, his tongue slicking up his front teeth.

He makes a pursing sound with his lips and Phil hears him say, ‘ _Allow it_ ’, before Phil finally passes the ball. It spins and wobbles precariously across the gulf between them, veering off to the side instead. Dan’s friend spits out a laugh, whacking his hand on Dan’s shoulder. Dan fetches the ball, and with his eyes gone Phil turns and walks away, pretending not to be dying. Literal, chest collapsing, legs shaking, heart attack, dying. He can hear what the large boy with far too delicate features says when he turns because _he’s really obnoxiously loud_ and it’s about his bag, his shoulder bag with Buffy on, and it goes along the lines of ‘that bag’s just ‘bout the only pussy he’s getting.’

Except it isn’t Dan’s friend that says it: it’s Dan. Phil also imagines that Dan lingers to watch as Phil walks away.


	2. Lemonade could be sophisticated, right?

Dan’s smart. Too smart for the dumb variety of jokes he’s been making lately, such as the one he’d spat all too carelessly those two days ago.

Phil’s thinking this, leant two-elbows to the cabinet, as Jon paces the shop, trailing skinny fingers over the racks of clothes. It’s Saturday, early afternoon, and a mellow light is pooling through the stain-glass windows onto the floor (the charity shop is an old church.) The light slants brightly into Phil’s eyes and he thinks, squinting, that it’s giving him a headache. That, or Jon is.

Jon likes to sleep-in Saturday mornings. He has never,  _ever_ , joined Phil at work before. Yet today he wandered in like a regular, swanning through the doors, under the bell, with a heavy sigh. Like something out of Gossip Girl, except Jon was wearing the jeans that bunched at his ankles, and a plaid shirt buttoned out of alignment. He had Primark bags cutting into the crease of his arm, and a Slush Puppy clutched at the end of it. His tongue was blue.

He started the conversation with a ‘ _so_ ’: ‘So, Smithy says you had a run in with Howell. Why didn’t you tell me?’

Of course Jon would latch onto this. He was always lamenting the absence of drama his ‘group’ provided. An almost-romance, almost-heartbreak, therefore, is still a hot topic.

Phil hadn’t been able to gather himself properly at lunch, after the so-called ‘run in’. Jon had taken a sick day – a “ _sick day_ ” – so it was just Smithy waiting at their table when he returned with a sandwich. They nodded at one another and Phil continued to eat in silence as Smithy launched into a rant about his maths teacher, how ‘useless’ they were. He’d gone red in the face, as Smithy does, forehead all wrinkled up, when he noticed Phil’s silence. He blurted a ‘what’s wrong with you’, frowning tightly behind his rectangular glasses.

Phil felt, and probably looked, extremely pale. Translucent-like. He explained weakly, waving his hand to brush it off because, inevitably, the red on Smithy’s face got redder, and he jutted his chin out, hand raised like a lawyer, explaining the case to Phil as if he didn’t know. It could be described as protective, but Phil suspected it was just a reason to feel superior, to say and express all the things he could never do when faced with the ‘type of people’ he hated so vehemently. And like usual, the hatred, the jealousy, the spite, whatever it was, got taken out on Dan.

Phil has never been able to match Dan to the labels, to fit his piece in with the puzzle. Then again, as Smithy never fails to point out, Phil doesn’t know Dan anymore. Dan has changed.

 _‘So’_ , Jon had repeated with emphasis, nudging Phil with his hip where Phil was trying and failing to hang a silky dress. ‘What are we going to do? _’_

What was he going to do? ‘Hi, Jon,’ Phil had sighed simply, blushing when Maggie raised an eyebrow at him from the till. Nothing, was what he was going to do. Jon was hoping for some kind of revenge-plan, some high-school-film makeover (he’d bought a new shirt for Phil in Primark, ‘belated birthday present’, he’d insisted) (he was always suggesting how hot Phil could be, like thanks), but this was England, and reality, and Dan was probably happy, and Phil was happy enough.

Jon had hung around for two hours, flopped in the chair designed for the elderly, playing with his Tamagotchi. Now the footfall had fallen (i.e. going from 5 customers an hour to zero), he was up again, dredging the same conversation up again, and pulling clothes off their hangers, much to Phil’s protest.

He’s not even talking to Phil anymore – ‘ _I’m not even talking to you anymore, you’re boring’_ – he’s talking to the Grannies (as Phil affectionately calls them in his head.) Maggie is all south-east London, smoker’s cough, hundreds of grandchildren. She’s one of those ladies that continues to wear makeup, even when it seeps into her wrinkles. Dotty, or Dorothy, is smaller (in every direction) (she’s even smaller than Jon, and he’s small), with bright blue eyes (brighter than Phil’s), and a personality to match her name. She wears giant colourful beads and mismatched patterned clothing: an ‘old hippie’, Maggie calls her.

Phil started working at the shop for his 2 weeks work experience, but they wouldn’t let him go... That’s how they like to put it, anyway, always patting his shoulders and ruffling his hair (the hair that ‘ _so desperately needs a cut_ ’, ‘ _oh let the boy live, Mags_.’) (The volunteering is good for the CV.) 

Phil slumps into his hands, his elbows skidding on the glass top of the cabinet, displaying all the antique jewellery. Jon is all hands while he tells the story – _Phil’s_ story. Phil hasn’t responded vocally to any of it, only offering the odd nod, shake of head, or rolled eye here and there, when the Grannies look to him for reaction. Dotty keeps gasping and tutting while Maggie smiles over at him with a devilish glint to her eye. Earlier, Dotty had sidled up to him and whispered not so quietly if Jon was his ‘ _little boyfriend_.’

“...Now they walk around pretending not to have ever known each other. Well, Dan does. Whenever Phil sees him he can’t help but sit up and stare. Like a puppy.” Dotty pouts. Jon swings a kimono off its hanger, shrugging it onto his shoulders. “I mean, like I said, Dan _is_ gorgeous now. Year seven girls whisper and giggle when they pass him. All in one summer he turned into the biggest hottie of the school. But, I digress, he’s also the biggest _twa-_ idiot. No doubt will fail his GCSE’s... What do you think of this, Phil?”

Jon turns in a slow circle, tossing the hair from his eyes. Phil gives him an awkward thumbs up; his focus is split in too many directions. Dotty is mumbling ‘ _oh, what a shame, poor you Philip, what a silly boy_...’ while Maggie’s eyebrows have raised impossibly high on her forehead. ‘ _Sounds like he’s making up for something..._ ’ she smirks, and Jon chokes on a laugh.  He nudges her and they giggle, suddenly besties.

“Isn’t he so hot though? Phil?”

“Er...” 

Jon tuts, letting Dotty suggest a shirt for him, a paisley print (one he’d wouldn’t be ‘caught dead’ wearing). Jon puts it on over the kimono. He’s beginning to look like a mannequin. A badly dressed one.

“See, Philly’s still besotted, really.” _Philly;_ Phil’s stomach turns. “He refuses to believe he’s changed.”

“Boys his age like to waggle their dicks around. ‘S in their nature.”

Phil collapses his head into his arms.

“Sorry,” Maggie offers laughingly.

“Maybe he’s not changed.”

It’s Dotty. Phil looks up to see her spinning Jon carefully with her hands, smoothing the shirt over his shoulders. Maggie rolls her eyes at her, but doesn’t get the chance to refute her endless optimism as Dotty continues.

“I bet he’s insecure. Sure, there’s some waggling his thingy-ma-wotsit around, but it all goes back to what he thinks he has to prove.”

“His what, Dottles?”

Dotty turns to blink at Mags.

“His willy, Mags, catch up.” She taps a finger to her head. “And you say _I’m_ losing my marbles.”

The two ladies leap into their usual bickering, and Phil’s about to sink his head into his arms again, when Jon waves at him from across the room. _Hello-o-o_ , he mouths. Phil desperately buries his head.

The thing is, everyone thinks they know everything about Dan. They hear enough about him. But they don’t remember the boy who hid in hoodies, who was soft-spoken and embarrassed. They were never witness to his self-doubt, to his neediness, never had the privilege of seeing his genuine smile, his uninhibited laughter.

Of course Dan had changed, but Phil would be (might be) damned if he didn’t believe there was something of the boy Phil knew still inside him. Maybe that was Phil’s own endless optimism, his hopeless nostalgia. But did Dan’s new friends know that Dan used to shop here, in second-hand shops? That he didn’t, still doesn’t, have enough money for the Adidas his mates wear, the Nikey bags? That he, in fact, does a paper round every other morning, swamped in a black hood like he were fourteen again? Phil knew, because Dan had once delivered to him, wordlessly shoving the letter into Phil’s hand when Phil had opened the door (upon seeing the letter being squished through the letterbox.) He’d disappeared down the path into the rain, half jogging, fists balled in his pockets. Phil had caught a glimpse of his face, just like he used to. Water was dripping down his nose, and he looked, well...

Dan was shy, and awkward. It was only in brief moments that he let himself shine, and he was sarcastic, always smart. He’d grown confident enough around Phil to be every side of himself.

“So, they wear them like this...”

Jon’s now stood on a chair - somehow, for some reason - adjusting a tie to sit high and fat on his neck. Like Dan’s. The three of them are cackling. Jon has also rolled up some skirt, demonstrating the girls. He pouts, fluffing up his hair.

“And that’s attractive to him?” Dotty wonders, slyly pulling the side of Jon’s skirt down a fraction. “All the...cakey make-up, too.” She sighs.

“So judgemental,” Mags smirks. “Bet you were a tease, in your day. Pasty flash of ankle...getting all the boys riled up.”

Dotty slaps Mags’ wrist.

“Saucy minx.”

“He’s moved on from year 11 girls. Last I heard, he was fu- seeing Lucy from our year. Got a taste for mil- older women. Some people say he got with one of the drama teachers. She left two months ago.”

“Well, he’s enjoying his youth while he has it,” Mags muses, and Phil catches himself thinking _yeah, as much as he enjoys playing football._

“If he’s neglecting his studies as much as you say, our Philip should be glad not to be involved.”

“They’re different, too. Phil’s a C grade emo, and Dan’s a chav... Like, a rude boy. He’s _popular_. Phil’s Phil. And, you know, _not_ a heartless bigot.”

(They’re the labels. Phil still can’t match them to Dan.)

Jon tries to do _The Thing_ with his fingers. “Gaaaaaaay-”

“I _am_ still here you know?”

“Come at me,” Jon turns to him, slapping his hands on his chest. He squares his jaw and he looks and sounds so silly, Phil can’t help but smile.

“Phil should ignore him. This Dan just wants a reaction. There’s plenty more fish in the sea!”

Phil frowns at Dotty. Her eyes skitter like a deer in headlights.

“Oh! Sorry, dear. Phil: you should ignore him. He just wants a reaction. There’ll be plenty more handsome fellas in the big gay sea!”

Phil opens his mouth to speak, but all he can do is shake his head. Dotty smiles brightly, happy to help. Jon jumps down from the chair, waddling up to Phil in all his assortment of clothes. Leaning across the register, he fits a feather hat to Phil’s head. It’s too small.

“No...Dan will get away with anything when it comes to Phil.”

He’s staring into Phil’s eyes as he talks: daring.

“He’ll always be happy to play doormat.”

There’s something mean about how he says it. Phil just frowns, shoving the hat back at him.

“I’ll just go drown in that big gay sea. Are you buying any of this? It’s nearly three and that’s when my shift ends.”

Phil’s never wished to be able to hate Dan. Mostly, Dan just makes him sad.

Year 11, Halloween; Phil had come to join Dan in the bathroom, because Jon was hogging his bedroom mirror. Dan smiled warmly in the glass where his eyes connected to Phil. Side by side, Phil continued to drip and smudge more blood and dirt (paint, eyeshadow) onto his face, neck, and shirt. From the bedroom, Jon’s voice wailed out to Thriller, and Dan and Phil laughed, meeting eyes again. Phil was smiling with his teeth and Dan pulled him gently by the wrist to bend down (because in Year 11, Phil was still taller.) He brushed the pad of his thumb over Phil’s front set of teeth – familiar, comfortable – as Phil bared them obligingly. Phil licked over them when Dan had removed the stain of fake blood, watching as Dan tore off tissue for the both of them (Phil was holding up his mucky hands like a toddler.)

“Some blood on the teeth would make me a more realistic vampire but-“

“-tastes yuck.”

“Yeah.”

Phil fussed with his fringe again before his eyes strayed to Dan, who was stood up on the side of the bathtub, trying to get a view of his whole body.

“Careful...” Phil laughed softly, holding out his arm before Dan even knew he needed it (his sock slipped.) Dan critically took in his image, face serious in a way he’d been looking at himself lately. Kind of pouting. It made Phil fond. 

“You’re too pretty.”

He’d said it too fast.

Before he could add ‘FOR A VAMPIRE’, Dan’s eyes widened. Panicked, Phil reached up and squirted a trickle of blood down Dan’s shirt. Dan jumped and almost fell back into the bath. Phil giggled and pressed his hand into Dan’s waist to smear it, but Dan slapped him away. Phil stalled. But it was Dan, so as Dan hopped back down to the floor, Phil playfully wiped his hand on his cheek and neck. Dan hit him fiercely this time; it took Phil by surprise.

“ _Phil_ ,” he huffed.

“ _Dan_.” Phil teased. They stood staring at each other. Dan _was_ too neat (pretty) for a vampire; he had skinny black jeans on and no mess or shadows on his face like Phil and Jon, only bruised-looking, plump lips. His hair was styled and he’d rolled his white shirt-sleeves up, selectively tearing a few rips in the chest where his tanned skin peeked through. It looked more tanned, against the white.

Phil swiped at Dan’s chest this time, to one of the rips. Dan bristled and jumped back, knocking against the cabinet. ‘ _Cold!_ ’ he squealed, then cleared his throat. Phil’s palm pulsed a little at the warmth of Dan’s skin.

Dan balled up more tissue and scrubbed his face. “Maybe I don’t want to look ugly like you.”

The words slashed between them. In the newly crisp silence, Phil’s heartbeat thudded. Two seconds after he’d said it, Dan froze and looked warily at Phil. Phil’s mouth had opened in shock, and the moment stretched out. And then Phil started to smile – slowly, at first – and Dan’s own lips twitched up in amusement. It was the most cutting Dan had ever been, but it was only because he was comfortable enough to say it: sure enough that Phil wouldn’t believe it.

“I didn’t mean it like- Hey!” Phil went for the hair: the new straightened Dan-hair he secretly always wanted to ruin. Dan shrieked and they began to wrestle, laughing loudly, when Jon appeared in the doorway, his arms crossed. Jon was ready and it was time to go. Dan fixed himself while Phil gorged the bowl of sweets on the table. Jon was talking a mile a minute, as usual, as he fitted the cape around his neck (with flourish.) He had braces in year 11, not that his teeth look all too different now (they’re still small and pointy, a little crowded.) He frowned when Dan reappeared, casting his eyes over Dan’s frame, the slits of skin on display.

“How’d you make that look cool?” He blushed instantly upon hearing the petulance in his voice. His hands were feeling over the cuts he’d made in his own shirt: large, gaping holes, with his skinny body beneath. Dan artfully created a few smaller cuts around Jon’s collarbone and down his arms. Jon had his chin raised while he did it, chewing on sweet after sweet, clearly embarrassed by the situation. Too much pride for it. Phil had draped back on the dining table (his mum would scold him), eating sweets as he waited. He’d taken to throwing the sweets and trying to catch them in his mouth, when Dan loomed over him, twirling scissors.

“C’mon, Philly. Can I sex you up a bit?”

Phil almost choked.

“Me and Jon both think you should.”

Jon nodded behind Dan, lip between his teeth. Phil sat up on his elbows and Dan raised his eyebrows, snipping the scissors invitingly. Phil protested the destruction of his school shirt: _his mum would be upset_ , _his mum was only in the room next door, watching TV_. But Dan was grinning, not listening, so as Phil mumbled about peer pressure and _ew, cold fingers,_ Dan got his hands on him, fingertips barely avoiding his shivering skin. Jon bounded up to join Dan, eagerly tugging at the fresh cuts. It was a weird situation – Phil commented as much.

“There.” Dan smiled, satisfied. His eyes skidded once over Phil’s body then focused as he gently tidied Phil’s collar. (Phil swallowed awkwardly, lungs constricting.)

“Ugh, we should go to Jessica’s party. We’re wasted on trick or treating.”

“We weren’t invited,” Phil reminded him pointedly, unceremoniously shoving a fizzy sweet into Dan’s mouth (in part to shut him up, because he’d been talking about _Jessica’s party_ for weeks now, as if a night with just Phil and Jon wasn’t enough.)

“What’s a party without a gate crasher?”

Dan was arguing as he followed Phil into the corridor.

(As if a night with Phil and Jon wasn’t _cool_ enough.)

“You say that like you’re experienced. You wouldn’t enjoy it, Dan, you don’t know anyone there. _I_ don’t know anyone there.”

Phil poked his head into the living room to say goodbye to his mum (who sprung to her feet and posed the three of them by the front door;  _one for the album_ , she’d said, several photos later.) (She didn’t say anything about the shirt.) Dan trailed behind them as they walked into the brisk night air. ‘ _We’re going to be the oldest trick or treaters, you know_ ,’ he called (he whined.) Jon linked arms with Phil and went to skip ahead, but Phil held back: waited for Dan.

He jiggled his pumpkin-shaped bucket. “You’re telling me you’re too old for sweets? Fine, _I’ll_ just have all of yours!” Then he swiped Dan’s own pumpkin-shaped bucket from his hands and ran. Of course, Dan caught up with him.

A week later at Guy Fawkes, Phil found himself hovering (hiding) between the magazine and crisp aisle, building up the courage to order a bottle of vodka. Phil was 15. Dan was waiting outside, of course. They were on their way to the common where the fireworks show would be happening, when Dan tugged Phil to a stop outside an off-licence. ‘ _Everyone will be drinking,’_ he’d said, which seemingly was the only argument that mattered. Initially, Jon encouraged it, before the question arose of _who_ would be doing the ordering. ‘ _Too tiny!’_ Jon burst, quivering with anxiety. Phil fidgeted between his feet under the neon light, anxious himself. Dan offered but Jon pushed him back, saying ‘ _too baby-face’_ (with superiority.) Dan shrugged him off and shoved his hands in his pockets. He’d looked at Phil with these pleading eyes, this daring glint, and whispered ‘ _You’re literally the oldest.’_ He looked especially good that night.

‘ _One half-litre bottle of Smirnoff, please. One half-litre bottle of Smirnoff, please-‘_

He repeated his script like a mantra. Do adults just buy bottles of spirits? Is his jacket smart enough, is his hair too long? Does a crinkly twenty pound note look adolescent? Phil grabbed a bottle of lemonade to act as mixer, as if he was having a sophisticated party. Lemonade could be sophisticated, right?

The door dinged as Phil exited, plastic bag bouncing on his knees. Despondently, he held up its contents – just the lemonade.

Somehow, though Phil was shaken and mortified, Dan persuaded Phil to check what drinks his parents had at home. Phil’s mum burst in on them as they were examining the fridge. Tentatively, Phil asked if they had any alcohol: ‘T-To take to a party...’

 _‘Oo_! A party!’ Phil’s mum promptly shimmied out of the room, returning with a dusty bottle of Bucks Fizz and a lone beer. ‘Leftover from Christmas. Will there be girls and boys?’

Hurrying away from his mum’s embarrassing questions (and excitement, clearly she thought he was a loner), they quick-stepped up the street, bottles in hand. The lemonade was cradled against Phil’s chest, despite Dan’s insistence he drop it. ‘ _Oh, don’t forget your lemonade. You must stay hydrated when drinking!’_ Dan had claimed the beer, while Jon nursed the Bucks Fizz. Obviously, they couldn’t sneak them into the park, unless they hacked through the woods, so they stopped on a street corner and downed them. Well, Phil drank as much as he could. Dan had already finished his beer and was chanting things at Jon to get him to finish quicker. Jon let out a funny breath upon reaching the end, and his face flushed pink. His skinny frame already seemed dizzy. Phil had barely made it a quarter through (it _was_ family sized) when Dan wrenched it out of his hands (and lips) and tipped it onto the grass. It glugged loudly into the night. Distantly, the funfair pulsed.

Dan grabbed Phil’s wrist and Phil instantly forgave him. They jogged up to the entrance, Jon lagging behind. The air smelt of mud and ketchup and smoke. Lights whirled and flashed around them in every colour. It was busy, filled with kids in bobble hats running between their parents legs. Having taken the detour to his house, the fireworks show was about to start, so they ran, puffing and panting, through the funfair to the viewing field. The first firework set off before they’d made it, so they watched, eyes shining, as they ran. For that brief moment in time, that ten minute firework show, Phil got to watch Dan’s face light up with wonder: how the fireworks reflected in his eyes, how he smiled to himself. How his hair shivered in the wind. Dan blushed and nudged him, telling him to stop, but then he stayed right there, beside Phil’s shoulder, and Phil had never felt warmer against the autumn chill. He forgot Jon was there. He forgot the crowd was there. He was bold; he brushed Dan’s pinky finger. Dan didn't comment on it.

The show ended in applause and slowly the crowd thinned. Dan had started a competition in who could impersonate a firework better, and so they were making all kinds of stupid noises as they walked. Dan won. Phil noticed Jon was oddly quiet. He’d gone pale, his eyes glassy. The funfair throbbed before them, its rides spinning wildly. Phil placed a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “You okay...?”

“I feel sick.” He said it all in one, as if he’d been holding the words back, waiting to be asked. Phil stood with him, rubbing his back awkwardly, as Dan jogged to fetch a cup of water. “It’s the alcohol,” Jon breathed heavily. He was clammy and bent over slightly. Phil made a noise of agreement, but the Bucks Fizz didn’t have a high percentage. It was more likely that Jon had skipped dinner again, or he was just having another one of his funny spells (that’s what he called them, Phil wondered if they were really panic attacks.)

Dan had been gone a while so Phil glanced around to find him. There he was – at the popcorn stall. He wasn’t alone. He was talking to some boy. Nearby, a group of boys and girls were mucking around, laughing loudly. Phil recognised them as the group of year 10 students Dan would call ‘ _popular_.’ Phil’s stomach flared with annoyance. Jon was still breathing shakily, and Dan was dawdling. Finally, he made a friendly gesture and began walking in Phil’s direction. _Run,_ Phil thought.

He was all breathless and giddy when he reached them. “Hey. I was going to get you some popcorn, Phil, but I didn’t have enough change...” He shoved the water at Jon. “So. What are you two doing?”

Phil stiffened. “Why, what are you doing?”

Dan looked back over his shoulder. The group were still there.

“Well it depends what you’re doing-”

“-Home.” Jon cut in.

There was a beat of silence.

“Well...I’d quite like to go on some rides still, and my friend over there invited me to join him-“

“Who?” He didn’t mean it to sound so sharp.

Dan answered smoothly. “He’s in my maths class.” He wasn’t looking at Phil. He was fixing his hair absentmindedly.

Phil peered behind Dan. “They look rowdy.” They did. Two boys were wrestling now while the girl’s rolled their eyes and checked their phones.

Dan followed his gaze. “No they’re cool.” He began to laugh lightly. “They, um, _they snuck vodka in._ In flasks.”

Phil blinked. Jon sunk to crouch on the floor. “So you’re staying?”

“If that’s okay? I mean, you don’t need two pairs of hands to walk Jon home...”

Phil nodded. He didn’t know what else to say. “Okay.”

Dan smiled brightly and gave a small wave. He didn’t say anything like _see you at school_ or _get home safe_ , he just turned and left, silhouetted against the funfair. Phil and Jon watched him disappear then trudged home in silence. Phil replayed the interaction in his head and wondered on how much younger Dan had suddenly looked.

The clock reaches three on the wall. Jon pushes the feather hat across the register.

“For our Cocks.” The room falls silent. “No, I mean, Cocks is our friend, that’s his surname, unfortunate, I know, especially considering he’s in no way inclined...”

“He won’t wear it.” Phil scans it through.

“He will. He’s too unbearably straight.” Jon drops the hat into his Primark bag, the paper crinkling loudly. Jon raises his voice to speak over the noise. “You all need to get on my level. But not, like, outshine me.”

Phil smiles warmly, tiredly, and Jon waits as Maggie signs him out. Maggie had reached her in-need-of-coffee stage, but Dotty was still humming merrily around the shop. On his way out, she pulled Phil close and whispered  _‘You keep being yourself, Philip. Nevermind this Daniel boy.’_ Phil could feel the entirety of their conversation about him and Dan spinning in his head. Jon waggled his fingers at the Grannies as they chimed through the door.

“Wear the shirt I bought you on Monday,” Jon instructs, bag swinging from his elbow. Phil hitches his Buffy bag closer to his side. “Show Howell what he’s missing.”

Despite himself, Phil wears the shirt. He doesn’t see Dan that day but on Thursday he sees him across the corridor. Phil had been studying late in the library and hadn’t been prepared to bump into him at all. The shock was like a spear through his heart. Even though he was tired, his hair a mess and his tie loosened, his heart leapt into action. Dan was helping a geography teacher, his noodle arms outstretched holding a box. His eyes were turned to the ceiling, absent-minded. The teacher piled book after book into the box. Phil didn’t go as far as to stop walking, but he slowed his pace. Dan looked tired too. His hair was curling at the ends and his body was relaxed. He began to lean back against the wall but straightened himself when the teacher returned. She said something to him, possibly ‘ _ten more minutes and you’re free,’_ but Phil didn’t bother to work it out when Dan’s face lowered and his eyes latched onto Phil’s. The corridor suddenly seemed too narrow, too quiet. Both of their guards were down. Dan looked vulnerable, almost sad, and Phil missed him. Phil had unconsciously stopped. Dan was gorgeous. He really, really was. He didn’t expect it when Dan’s left hand swivelled under the box and gave him a wave.


	3. Sympathetic gum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A mess. But fun, I hope?  
> TW for slur

Phil’s got his giant art folder today and with the rush of crossover traffic in the D block hallway, he’s thinking it’s rather like a shield. Or, _would_ be like a shield, if he wielded it like one instead of allowing himself to be squished up against the wall by children. He’s looking down on all their little heads, packed like sardines, trying (and failing) to get to his French class. (He didn’t have much basis for picking the subject, only that speaking the language might make him sexier.)

Phil’s just considering how old this situation makes him feel (and whether he had been so small and _loud_ -) when a figure as tall as his own catches his eye. Of course it’s who he expects it to be. Somehow the pang in his heart knew before his brain did. Dan – Daniel Howell – shoulders through the crowd, his head hung in the way Phil remembers, his face obscured by his hood. He appears to have forgone his blazer, but his shirt is beneath, his tie loose. Phil’s arms tighten a smidge around his folder. Phil’s gaze had zeroed in on the little space beneath Dan’s neck...between his collar-bone...the little exposed tanned piece of skin; but it shifts now to observe the way Dan angles himself through the gaps, parting the crowd in god-like fashion.

It’s not that Phil hasn’t observed the giggling (the nudging, the whispers) that follow Dan’s wake before, but after that goddamn _wave_ \- Well, he might as well join the 14 year old girls in their blushing. A hot wave licks through him as he stares after Dan’s sloping figure. When he says Dan is gorgeous – when he admits it – he doesn’t just mean the perfect design of his face... But then how perfect can a face be?! In moments like these, where Phil can detach “his” Dan from the real one, he forgets how he has touched that face before: how his fingers have skimmed the panes of it, poked the blush on it, and known it to be real. There they’d be, sprawled out on the grass between their bikes, Phil’s hands wandered to the younger Dan, whose dimple was so inviting in the sunshine. Dan would blink at him slowly, breathing shallow, as Phil silently plucked a daisy from its stalk and balanced it on that perfect dimple, what Dan would call a _deformity._ Of course, Dan had to be smiling for Phil to find it. And then he’d smile wider and the daisy would fall. (Dan would roll over and Phil would continue to balance daisies on his forehead, the bridge of his nose-)

What did it even mean to be “popular”? What had made Dan want to be so? All Phil saw was a decline into apathy, joining the gloomy kids at the back of the class. Was he so anxious to be accepted? Why had he been so desperate to fast-forward time? To skip to whatever being an adult meant? The “cool” seemed to come with so much coldness. And Dan used to be so warm. (Did he want admirers? Because if Phil is honest he’d thought about it, he’d noticed, he wouldn’t have balanced daisies if he hadn’t needed an excuse to stare-)

Jon is crouched on the seat of their bench, leant over the sheets of paper spread surreptitiously before him. Smithy has turned his back to him, anxiously and irritably tapping his fingers on the table. He’s not happy to have his homework copied. Both of them keep looking over their shoulder as if some teacher will spot them and know what’s going on. Next to Phil, Cocks (Bertram being his first name; you can see why it doesn’t catch on) is happily munching on an ice bun from the canteen. When he’s done, he sloppily sucks on each finger instead of using the tissue provided.

“You’re not making it obvious, right?”

“Obvious, obvious how?!”

“You have to change a few details! It’s _my_ work! Why didn’t you do yours anyway, you had just as much time-“

Smithy continues ranting while Jon furiously scribbles, trying to block him out. Cocks hitches his lanky legs into a cross, knees hitting the edge of the table. He smiles absently, head tilted to where a bird chirps in a nearby tree.

“-Like I wouldn’t have been surprised if _Cocks_ had asked-“

(It’s not that he’s _unintelligent_...just a bit ditzy. And the...weed...doesn’t help to, er, _sharpen_ his mind...)

“Sorry-” Smithy shrugs, but Cocks’ is far too easy-going, far too kind, to care.

 “You’re in a fucking _mood_ today...”

Smithy gawps in so much offence he can’t get the words out. He looks like a goldfish. Drowning.

“Are you still rattled by the prank?”

Jon begins to snigger lightly, angling his head as he underlines a sentence. Phil sits forward, sucking the last of the Ribena from his carton.

“What prank?”

Jon doesn’t look up. “Oh, well _you_ were so M.I.A this weekend I didn’t get a chance to tell you.”

“Don’t tell him. And I’m not rattled.”

Phil pulls the flaps of his carton out so it looks like an airplane. (He _had_ pretended to be busy over the weekend. He just didn’t want to discuss ‘ _The wave’_ anymore...)

“Tell me!”

“You tell him. I’m working.”

“ _Correction:_ you’re copying- _Ow_! Don’t stab me. Fine. On Saturday Jon and I went to see the new Spiderman film and afterwards I got a call from Jess.”

He pauses to lick something from his teeth. “Which Jess?” Phil prompts. “A Jess from the Jessicas?”  (An unusual proportion of the ‘popular’ girls are called Jess; Phil likes to refer to them as if they were robots.)

“Hartman. So I answered-“

“-No, he panicked and picked it up when they rang again.”

“Well, I thought it might be a miss-dial! Turns out she was drunk and being dared to prank me. I hung up and that was that.”

“...Smithy that’s no details.”

“It’s because he’s embarrassed. Here, have your book back, I wrote you a message. Smithy answered all casual like ‘Oh, yeah, just chilling in McDonalds...’ – as if _that_ made him cool – and then suddenly he was all quiet and red and I leaned in to hear better and she was saying like ‘ _I dream about you at night, I think you’re really sexy, what are you wearing right now? Can you talk_?’ Smithy was practically _frozen_ , but she kept talking and started to say ‘ _I love your glasses, I really like chubby guys, and oh I wanna run my fingers through your long, greasy hair..._ ’ and that’s when we heard laughter and, yeah. ...But _oh_ , it was _so_ funny how worked up Smithy got.”

Smithy clears his throat. He’s scrambling for a rubber in his pencil case to erase the ‘message’ Jon has left him in the corner of the margin.

“Right, can I talk again? I’m _not_ embarrassed, I was angry and I don’t want to get angry again. It’s bullying. They picked me because they thought the idea of someone finding me _attractive_ was so hilarious.”

He’s rubbing the paper a little too hard.

Phil and Jon speak at the same time.

“How did she have your number?” “No it’s ‘cos you’re gay.”

Phil throws a warning glance to Jon, who raises his eyebrows and stretches a hairband out from his teeth.

“ _Not_ gay. And because she was in the maths Olympia group. I don’t know _why_ the teachers picked her, she’s clearly the token girl.”

“Now Charles, dear, don’t be sexist.”

“I-I’m not! I’m just stating _facts_ -“ Jon rolls his eyes, twisting the hairband between his fingers. Smithy sighs heartily and adjusts his glasses. “I just hate that people like them still exist in sixth form. I’d hoped they would be weeded out from GCSEs and get on with their vocational apprenticeships, doing... _beauty therapy,_ or whatever...”

Jon laughs under his breath, but Smithy’s eyes are stony.

“They’re all bullies. They thrive on humiliating the likes of us.”

Phil fidgets in his seat. “I’m sure they’re not _all_ -“

“What? Dan?”

Jon’s eyes are bright and unflinching on Phil. The awkward silence is immediate.

“Because Dan _wasn’t_ a bully, right?”

It’s a wash of relief when the bell for class rings. Phil would have defended Dan, when really he knows he can’t. Cocks extracts himself from the bench and stretches to full height (taller than Phil), while Jon balls the rubbish from the table. Smithy’s frown is a deep valley now as he slots his book back in his bag. The two of them walk ahead of Phil and Cocks, bickering as always.

“You know...” Cocks begins in that lazy way of his. Phil kicks a stray piece of gravel. “...I didn’t think the new Spiderman was very good.”

And so Phil is distracted for a while.

But only a while.

Jon acts as though Phil talks about Dan all the time, but it’s nearly always _Jon_ that brings him up. _Phil_ hasn’t been making drama over the wave, over any of it. Though in Phil’s naïve, inconsequential life, that wave rocked up like it were tidal size, he knows it meant nothing. And, if he were yet more brutal with himself, the fact is he and Dan were only really friends for less than a year. They’ve _not_ been friends for longer – for a year and a half, almost, and _yes_ Phil has apparently been counting. Phil hasn’t tried to rehash all the gory details; Phil hasn’t wanted to push anything. It confuses Phil, how Jon does the pushing for him, coaxing out his hidden, lingering feelings, and then rejecting everything there is about Dan.

It was no secret that Jon never liked Dan as much as Phil did. He’d patronise him, as if he were so much more mature, and he’d clash with him for attention. It’s not that Jon had been quiet about it. He’d told Phil in small quips (once in spectacular fashion) that he didn’t get the hype, that when Dan was around Jon was no longer the cute one, or the funny one, no longer Phil’s best friend. Dan was _annoying_ , and _needy,_ and a _try-hard,_ but Phil would skip over those adjectives to address what was important to him: that Jon would always be his best friend, he and Dan were different. He couldn’t define ‘ _different’_ if Jon had asked, but he never did.

The short time he’d known Dan hadn’t mattered. Phil had never made such an instantaneous, intense connection before. And it was true, Dan got attached quick. They spent the summer between year 10 and 11 in each other’s pockets. Phil, regretfully now, was ignorant to the time he didn’t spend with Jon. But then year 11 began, bonfire night passed, and Dan disappeared on holiday over Christmas. Phil never snaps, but Phil snapped at Jon’s incessant warnings, the bitching, the _I-Told-You-So_ s, because his and Dan’s friendship had already withered to awkward conversations after school, where neither could relate to the other anymore. Dan would divulge all the gossip from his Other Friends, and Phil would listen but not understand. ‘ _I thought you didn’t like drama?’_ He’d ask, and Dan would shrug and say ‘ _It’s different with them.’_ Another ‘different’ Phil couldn’t define.

Phil ignored Jon all Christmas in favour of nervously texting Dan. He’d never been nervous to text Dan, but he knew how Dan felt about his family, so he tried. The texting petered out but Phil stayed glued to his phone, adding stupid cracker jokes and photos of what he was watching on TV despite Dan not replying. In the end, Dan never replied to those messages, just simply sent ‘Merry Christmas!’ on Christmas day. It stung. Phil apologised to Jon, but still he was alone in his hurting. Jon was victorious, and Phil, being Phil, sat in silence.

Dan started binge drinking, buying ugly polo shirts, using hair gel. After Phil’s birthday, Phil shut off from the world and studied. Dan made it really difficult to stay for Sixth Form, not by anything he did or said – by February they never interacted – but because maybe it was really Phil who’d got so attached. Maybe their connection had always been as imaginary as things are now. Maybe Jon had always been right, and Phil was blind.

It was easy to blink and doubt Dan had waved at all. It was easy to feel an ache in his chest one second, and then hours later wonder if he’d exaggerated. But Phil certainly doesn’t feel blind no matter how much he blinks when he sees Dan slumped against the lockers in the corridor on Tuesday morning, drumming fingers on his drawn-up knees and mumbling to himself.

Phil actually stalls where he’s walking and steps back behind the end of the opposing block of lockers. Emotion lurches and crashes and then he’s left with a thumping heart, a noisy air-conditioner, and a terrifying space ahead of him. Dan turns his head away, his chest expanding with a breath. Phil tenses as if ready to turn back, but his hips stay square to the ground. It’s stupid, just standing there, Dan could look over at any second and then what would Phil do?

Sometimes, Phil surprises himself. He acts without thinking. Maybe it’s because Dan bent his head and spent a good ten seconds fixing his hair. Boldly (kind of), Phil steps out, fist clenched around the strap of his bag and jaw firm. Phil’s wearing his glasses today, so no doubt to Dan he looks even lamer. But Phil is agitated from these last few days, and he hardly ever sees Dan like this: on his own. A voice in his head claims fate. It’s one of the rare moments in his life where Phil Lester feels mildly confrontational.

Dan’s head shoots up at the sound of footsteps and completely stills upon seeing Phil. His eyes are wide and steady as they follow Phil’s movement towards him. His entire body screams _don’t sit down_ , and it almost makes Phil smile for real because for once he feels powerful, the dynamic shifted back to something he used to be used to- But instead he smiles politely, breezy, and folds himself down against the lockers. They rattle behind him. When they settle, and Phil’s bones sink a bit into the cold, hard floor, panic strikes. What has he done?! Dan stares at him: guarded, horrified.

Embarrassment creeps hot and immediate up Phil’s neck and face. He ducks his head to hide it, hair swinging in front of his eyes. _Say something, you twat._

(He can hear Dan’s voice in his head, sarcastic but affectionate: _Phil... What are you doing?_ )

“You looked lonely?” 

_Too deep. Why did you say it like a question?_

Phil leans his head back against the locker, sliding his eyes across to Dan. Dan truly looks taken aback, stunned of words. Phil watches as his bottom lip pouts out, perplexed, and his dimples set in – almost as if he might smile…but, no. His eyebrows screw down into a mean expression. Phil’s heart palpitates.

“Um...no, I’m alright.” He laughs awkwardly, breathily, as if Phil’s embarrassing him. “Got kicked out of class.” He motions his head to the door beside him. There’s an air of arrogance in his voice, as though Phil should be impressed.

“Yeah? What you do?”

Phil doesn’t know why he encourages it. His whole being is burning up with embarrassment, mind racing with what to say next. His leg won’t stop _twitching_ and his eyes dart about, unsure where to focus. Dan, meanwhile, can’t hold Phil’s gaze; he’s staring down at his lap, eyebrows and hands expressive.

“Correcting the teacher, literally. _Apparently_ that makes me a smart-ass...”

Phil isn’t really listening as Dan takes a breath and rambles on, further explaining the situation, how unfair it is to be blamed for hurting the teacher’s pride. He’s seen this before: Dan’s awkward rambling, how his hands emphasise his words, how his eyebrows raise then screw together tightly. The indignant, whiny tone. How articulate he really is. At some point, he finishes his point and shifts his eyes only to glance at Phil’s presence beside him. Phil jerks slightly.

“Oh! Yeah, no, unfair.”

Dan turns his head fully. He must have heard Phil’s flustered state, maybe known he wasn’t really listening. It’s easy to forget they’re no longer friends when Dan looks at him like that: almost affectionate. Maybe Phil imagines it, because the next moment he turns his nose up and looks away, slumping lazily into the ground. Maybe he regrets having spoken so openly. He crosses his arms over his body and kicks his legs out across the corridor, as if daring someone to step over them.

“Um…so how are you? How’s...Year 11?”

Phil tries to sound casual. Dan’s taken out his phone, so Phil leans his head back to observe the Year 9 artwork displayed on the opposite wall.

Dan sighs heavily. “Work experience.”

“...Where?”

“Here. Apparently I was uncooperative so they got me shadowing a teacher.”

“And that’s...that’s not something you, er, are inter- want to do, I guess?”

Phil cringes to himself. Dan’s shoulders seem to have raised making Phil feel shunned and unwanted. He twitches terribly, jiggling both knees now.

“Are you gonna wet yourself?”

Dan’s voice is flat and disinterested, coming from the darkness of his closed body. Phil shakes his head then quickly chokes out a breathy, embarrassed ‘ _no_.’

“And no, obviously that’s not something I want to do. I’m thinking of studying Law.”

“Oh! Cool.” (Phil nods for too long, overthinking the lack of enthusiasm in his voice and where on earth to take the conversation next.) “What about piano?”

“Piano?!” Dan smiles at him and Phil flinches. “I don’t play piano anymore.”

Phil watches as Dan swallows. The words drop heavy into the air like a stone to still water. Dan’s eyelids flutter down to the floor between them and Phil has to hold his breath to keep his heart from beating right out of his chest.

“The last time I played piano was when I learnt…”

He seems to catch himself and blinks quickly. His voice had become soft and quiet and with it Phil had unconsciously leant closer. Dan straightens up, face tilted to the ceiling. He tosses his phone between his hands.

“But you play football now, so...that’s cool.”

“Yeah.”

The silence is so painful. There’s so much tension that comes with everything they haven’t acknowledged. Even two centimeters away from the boy, Phil can’t decide how much of a stranger Dan really is. Phil’s dropped his gaze and taken his glasses off, cleaning them a bit with the corner of his blazer. He doesn’t see as Dan glances to him, eyes lingering.

“I still listen, sometimes. To classical piano.”

Phil clumsily puts his glasses back on. Dan’s eyes are fixed to the ceiling now. Phil feels the need to match Dan’s quietness, and his voice cracks slightly when he begins to speak in half a whisper.

“You always liked that um…furry song.”

Dan rotates his head slowly. Phil watches his expression nervously. The sudden seriousness underlying their conversation has put him on edge (more so than before). Phil is ready for Dan to make some kind of cutting remark, but instead his eyes suddenly brighten with amusement.

“...Do you mean für elise, Phil?”

Phil’s stomach turns inside-out at hearing Dan say his name again. For one elongated second, he can’t find his voice. He shrugs. They’re staring at each other now, heads resting on the lockers.

“Yeah.” Phil whispers. “Yeah, not like...the furry fandom anthem.”

Dan laughs. It’s not one of his loud, head-tossed-backwards laughs, but it’s just as infectious. Phil’s lips can’t help but smile proudly. Dan falls forward a little with his laughter and the ends of his fringe brush Phil’s arm. The skin Dan’s hair touched tingles.

“Why did you wave?”

The fragile moment shatters. Phil surprises himself again with the abrupt question. His body had asked for him.

Dan stills and blinks up at Phil. For a moment, he remains close, but then pulls back sharply, crossing his arms defensively. He brings his feet up again, caging his body.

“Why did I wave?” He questions, as if it were weird for Phil to ask, as if it _wasn’t_ weird that Dan had waved in the first place.

“Yeah.”

Phil can’t believe how steady and determined his voice is. His heart pumps thickly and his throat feels sticky when he swallows. Dan isn’t looking at him again. He fidgets where he sits, hiding his face as he adjusts his hair.

Dan scoffs, rubs his nose. “I don’t know, Phil, maybe I was saying hello.”

“But Dan, we haven’t talked in years.”

“-It’s not been _years_ …”

“Even so. Like. What do you want?”

Phil’s heart is hammering. Dan stares up at him forlornly as if begging Phil to just _understand_. He exhales and Phil can’t tell if it’s in dismissive laughter or because he’d been holding his breath. The door beside them swings open and both of them jump. A teacher appears with hands on her hips. She frowns at Phil momentarily and then turns her attention to Dan. Phil begins to shift awkwardly to standing.

“Do you understand why I sent you out, Daniel?”

“Yes.”

“And do you have anything you’d like to say to me?”

“Sorry, Miss.”

The teacher nods, her lips in a tight line, and motions Dan to move back inside the classroom. Dan gets up slowly, head bent, and Phil skips between his feet, unsure whether to speak again or just leave. Dan seems intent on the latter, determinedly pretending Phil isn’t there. Phil is about to comply and simply walk away when he notices the group staring at him from the end of the corridor. Slowly, reluctantly, he moves to stand up.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t engage with the students I send out, next time.”

The teacher’s eyes are as damning as Jon’s. Phil nods and swallows around the lump in his throat. His eyes flicker between the teacher and Jon.

Jon is positively scowling, face beet red, when Phil meets him in the middle. He steps in front of Smithy and Cocks, who mostly look awkward, if a little disappointed. He speaks in a hiss.

“Are you serious?”

Classrooms begin to empty and students start passing beside them.

“Don’t you remember how toxic he was? How he treated you? How he treated me?”

Phil hangs his head.

“Remember how he ditched you? Remember your birthday?”

“You want to be his friend again? Fine. But it’s me or him, Phil.”

Jon shoulders past Phil. Cocks sneakily passes him sympathetic gum. Phil remains standing, blocking the corridor.

Does Phil remember. Phil remembers everything. He just wishes he didn’t.

Year 11, Phil’s sixteenth birthday. Phil and Jon had planned a cluedo party, where everyone would dress up in 1920’s attire, eat cupcakes, tiny sandwiches, and buckets of popcorn when they’d watch a movie later. Dan was already late.

Phil leaped to answer the door. “Finally! We can start!” Jon sighed dramatically. Dan wasn’t dressed up. He was in his cool person clothes. But he smiled sweetly and awkwardly went to hand Phil his present while Phil went in for a hug. They hugged with the box between them.

“Happy birthday,” Dan smiled quietly, face too close.

Phil almost said ‘Happy birthday’ back with the warmth of Dan and Dan’s new scent (cool person scent) overwhelming him. He didn’t apologise for being late but Phil was a little transfixed by the singular curl peeking out by Dan’s ear. They waddled to the living room where the table was set up for the game - where everyone was waiting - and when Dan reached the doorway he leant against it, schooled his face, and nodded at everyone’s greetings. He sat down next to Phil (who scooched Jon up, Jon biting his lip forcefully) with his head ducked, clearing his throat. Awkward silence settled. Thankfully, Jon clapped his hands, and the game began.

They got into it like they got into Dungeons and Dragons. Everyone had their character, and threw themselves into their role. Jon would get up onto his seat, grab his pearls and clasp a hand to his head dramatically, monologuing his woes, his tragic marriage. Even Phil developed a silly voice for his doorman persona. It could have been one of the best nights of his life, if it hadn’t been for the dark shadow beside him.

Dan interacted with the lowest level of enthusiasm possible. He laughed under his breath at others fun. He used his phone in his lap. People began to ignore him, stopped suggesting ideas for his character, and his turn would pass with monotonous necessity. Phil couldn’t help but be worried. He wasn’t even angry. He’d nudge Dan and smile at him, whisper jokes to him, pass him snacks, as if inclusion was the problem, as if Dan was still shy. When it came to present giving and cake-cutting, Dan didn’t look up at Phil’s parents with the cake, barely smiled for the picture, barely sung along. He only perked up when it was time to give Phil his present. Jon had burned the horror film he and Phil had made when they were younger onto a disc and handcrafted a silly but professional looking case to present it with. It was personal and surprising, and everyone was still cooing over it, but Phil had saved Dan’s for last. He took the box eagerly and ripped the paper off.

“They’re the latest.”

Phil took the pair of white trainers from the tissue paper.

“Everyone wants them.”

The room had fallen silent. Phil’s heart was thumping but all he could feel was a slow unfurling of disappointment in his stomach.

Phil’s mum leant over the arm of the sofa. “Wow, Daniel. That’s very generous of you.”

They would have been expensive. Dan didn't have that kind of money. The price tag was scratched out.

Dan looked anxious when Phil turned to him. His hands were clasped in his lap, his eyes expectant and excited.

“Thank you,” Phil said, shaking his head. He felt a little dazed, a little confused. He hugged Dan with one arm, and it was awkward. “I’ll wear them now!”

He couldn’t understand why his hands were trembling just slightly as he clumsily pulled the shoes onto his feet. Maybe it was the choking silence that still surrounded them, or all the eyes drilling into him. He didn’t do the laces up. Stretching his legs out, he wiggled his feet. Everyone leaned to look at them. No one said anything. The fact was they looked foreign on Phil’s body, with his nerdy shirt, his skinny legs.

Dan laughed. Frowned.

“Well, maybe not with those socks-”

“Oh, shut up, would you?”

Everyone seemed to gulp. Phil’s stomach dropped. Dan looked at Jon in shock, like a deer in headlights. The fright quickly disappeared beneath an ugly snarl.

“Jealous?”

“Hardly!” Jon laughed. He was almost manic with the relief of finally speaking up. “Phil doesn’t even want them! Do you know him at all?”

“Look, I’m sorry if money is an issue for you…” He trailed his eyes over to the DVD case.

“Jesus, fuck off.” Phil’s mum startled, but remained silent. The tension in the room had Phil’s heart racing, but he didn’t know how to intervene. He lowered his feet, with his bright, mismatched socks. “You wasted your stupid money. You’ve wasted all our time tonight. You’ve wasted yours. You sat there, mocking us, the entire game. You haven’t even bothered to dress up.”

Dan shrugged. “I forgot.”

“I thought I had reminded you…”

Dan paused at Phil’s voice. “It’s just not my thing, okay?” The new apologetic tone was still shrouded in defense. “The game, and the tea party, and the...dressing up…”

Jon lifted his chin, the carefully applied lipstick.

“Well, honey, you’re free to leave.”

Phil sat up suddenly, ready to jump in and smooth things out. They had the movie next after all, couldn’t they make up and settle down for that?

Dan scoffed.

“What?” Jon prompted, flat-toned.

“Just...the ‘honey’...with the whole look.”

Jon began to blush. He held his nerve.

“Jealous?”

“No,” Dan laughed, “I’m not some tranny.”

Phil thought Dan looked regretful the second he said the word. Jon disagreed later. Jon’s eyes turned steely and everyone held their breath.

“No one wants you here.”

It was like moving in slow motion. Dan got up swiftly and left the room, while Phil’s parents stood back against the wall, and Jon looked down at his lap. Phil watched the scene, from Jon to his parents to the door. His legs felt like jelly as he stood up, feet cushioned in his new shiny shoes, and ran after Dan. He’d later learn why the insult had hurt Jon so, how he’d secretly named his character Jessica, how he borrowed his sister’s clothes.

Phil tripped twice on his laces as he ran. Dan was waiting at the open front door, as if he knew Phil would come.

“Don’t go.”

“Do you want me here?”

“Yes, well, maybe if you apologise-”

“It’s me or them, Phil.”

Phil’s heart stopped. The breeze blew in gently, cold.

“Don’t be so dramatic…”

Dan’s expression was like stone.

“It’s me or them.”

Phil’s tongue felt like sandpaper. He stumbled for the words, desperate.

“W-W-How can you ask that? What am I supposed to think, Dan? _You_ don’t look like you want to be here, o-or with me, half the time. Sometimes I feel like you want to turn me into them…”

He was staring down at the shoes.

“It’s me or them.”

Phil jumped a little up and down. He felt like a toddler. He felt like shaking Dan, shaking the cool statue that he looked like right then. “Dan,” was all he could say, begging. Pathetic.

Dan hesitated, but left all the same. He left Phil to shut the door.

Year 11, prom. Phil had only had two plastic cups of Prosecco and a few sips from Jon’s flask, but the heat was suddenly stifling in the school hall. Maybe it was that he hadn’t socialised so much in the last two months; maybe it was the bouncing up and down he called dancing. Either way, he needed air. So Jon wouldn’t offer to follow, Phil whisper-shouted into Jon’s ear that he was going to the toilet, and skipped towards the exit out. Directly outside the doors were two girls in their long dresses, one being sick, so Phil shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and walked further to the school gate. Despite it being early summer, the night air was biting and his breath steamed before him. Gladly, he let the cold wind sweep up his suit jacket and curl around his waist.

He’d been oddly sad all night, despite it being a celebration with all his best friends. The alcohol had gone to his head and made his thoughts fuzzy so he couldn’t decipher why. But he could guess now, having stumbled upon a very familiar figure stood in the middle of the road. He hadn't seen him at all for the last 3 months.  _So he smokes now_ , Phil thought.

Before Phil could begin to come up with possible conversation, a girl swanned past him, heels clipping, and walked straight into Dan’s embrace. It took Phil a moment to see she was crying and the phone clutched in her hand. The back of her hair blocked the view of Dan’s face, already shadowed by his hood. Phil didn’t have the self-awareness to stop staring as they hugged and Dan rocked her gently side to side. She was wailing about something, complaining about someone. Before Phil knew it, they were kissing. _Dan_ was kissing someone, a girl, his girlfriend, Phil supposed.

He cupped her cheek, smoothed her hair back from her tear-streaked face. His other hand moved to her waist, pulled her closer. He tilted his head, hushed her completely. His cigarette was squished on the tarmac. Phil’s heart was pounding, painfully, but he didn’t notice that, not until this dark figure was staring straight at him, bright, taunting eyes, across the road. Staring at Phil; kissing the girl. Even from the distance, Phil could see the minute movement of his eyes, looking Phil once up and down. Telling him something. Daring him something. Phil could see their mouths open, the brief picture of tongue. The girl sobbed a little, moaned. Phil didn’t know the answer, so he turned numbly on his heel and walked away.

For summer holidays, Phil and his friends went to their first music festival. Aside from the music, it was a lot of drinking, a lot of lads shouting, girls screaming, and pissing everywhere you went, all the time. They’d been stuck in the middle of the rowdiness, surrounded by rubbish, and the stench of the toilets. So they’d decided to move to the ‘lame’ area, to white camping, instead of orange, which they’d quickly learnt meant the drug dealer camp. They set on their quest, a bunch of nerds, lugging tents and rucksacks through the morning, when things were quietest, and when the queues for food and the toilets were shortest. At white camp they were surrounded by older couples and even a few families, though Phil couldn’t understand bringing children to such an event. Regardless, they weren’t lost in a sea of sex and binge-drinking and pretentiousness. After the music, they sat late into the evening around a camp fire, playing cards and word games. Phil felt warm and grateful. He loved his friends. He belonged here. They got him. He didn’t need more than this.

On the last night, having re-charged his phone in the day, Phil got a notification. It wasn’t from his mum (he’d already messaged to tell her he was safe and would be home tomorrow at 12.) It wasn’t any of his friends, because they were all there, sat around him. It was from Dan. Apparently he still had Phil’s number. And it was a video.

Desperately, Phil tried to play it. It wouldn’t load. Without thinking, Phil abandoned his packing and wordlessly walked from the campsite. Jon called after him, but Phil didn’t hear. He walked and walked until he was at the edge of everything, between dark trees (which he’d usually be afraid of), leant against a fence. The sound of cars rumbled somewhere close by. Finally, the video loaded. Phil took a breath.

“Phillll,” Dan drawled. Drunk. He was completely shadowed. His hands stumbled in front of the camera placing the phone on something. “Shhh,” he giggled, putting his finger to his lips. Phil’s heart lurched. He could hear the voices and party music from somewhere further, maybe the garden. “This is yours.” Dan whispered. And then he began to play piano.

He played tentatively, quiet, but Phil could instantly recognise the song. It was the Bubble Bobble theme song. He stared at Dan (he couldn’t see his hands), at the soft concentration on his face, how he grumbled when he messed up. When he finished the short performance, he paused for a moment and smiled. Then he grabbed his phone and held it close to his face.

“I had been learning that for your birthday. But then I went for the shoes... So. You should have it.”

He inhaled and looked to the side. Blinked. His mouth was open on a sentence. It was dark but Phil panicked that he was crying.

“Happy birthday? Bit late. I messed that one up. Er. Yeah. Yup. Okay-”

And that’s where it ended. Phil clutched the phone to his chest. He hadn’t told Jon, or anyone, about it when he returned. He still hasn’t told them. That sweet, sad boy exists only in his heart, playing video game theme songs on piano. He is his. Phil can still feel him there keenly, even as the real version, older and angrier and different, exists somewhere behind him, at the back of a classroom.

Phil still doesn’t know the answer, standing here amidst all these students, younger than him. He doesn’t know what Dan wants. He doesn’t know if he should want Dan.


	4. MASH

September.

Phil had heard piano and had to look. He’d peered around the large red curtains and seen Dan, for the first time since June (if you didn’t count the countless times he’d replayed the video Dan sent him, late at night, cocooned beneath the duvet, reciting along to his fumbled apologies...) But now Dan wasn’t behind the piano; Dan was on top of it, and he didn’t look like the Dan Phil remembered.

Phil stared stupidly. This boy, leant over and casually disrupting the pianist’s playing, was altogether different. Broader. Tanned. Taller. Confident? He swung his arm above the keys and the boys around him laughed as he poked wrong notes. Eventually, the pianist gave up and they all laughed at him as he huffed and gathered his sheet music. On stage, two girls watched them irritably, with what seemed to be scripts in hand. There was no teacher in sight. The boys sat backwards on chairs, arms crossed; two were play fighting. Dan turned around and Phil found himself feeling exactly the same as when he’d seen Dan for the very first time: he couldn’t drag his eyes away.

One boy took the stool and crashed his hands against the keys. It was then that Phil was spotted, and Dan glanced up as his friend pointed and shouted across the hall: ‘ _Oi, what you looking at?!’_

Dan was easily the most attractive human Phil had ever seen in person. Leant back on one arm, one leg bent... His shirt was un-tucked, revealing the jut of his hip, the band of his Calvin Klein’s. Though he was far away, he didn’t seem to flinch at the sight of Phil; his face remained blank, relaxed. Phil could hardly breathe as they looked at each other. How could this be the Dan Phil had been friends with? Another voice shouted ‘ _Pfft. You gay or something?’_ and Phil blinked fast. They were all staring at him. His heart felt swollen; it was burning. Dan did nothing.

The sound of laughter followed him as he quick-stepped away. When he closed his eyes, all he could see was the obscene gesture Dan’s friend had made, and the slow, cruel smirk on Dan’s own face. Later that day, Jon found him, eyes wide and fascinated, and asked excitedly ‘ _You seen Howell?!’_

All summer, Phil had been desperate to see Dan again. After receiving the video of him playing Bubble Bobble, he couldn’t help but feel an unspoken connection to his (ex) friend. A silent understanding. Dan was stranded, really. Dan was stuck. Phil had a gap to bridge. They had been cruelly torn from one another. Except, Dan had ditched him, really, as Jon would so often remind Phil. Dan had quickly become the key villain of conversation. It was no wonder Phil said nothing, again, about his pining. He held his secret hopes close to his chest only to have them rubbed like salt to a wound on that very first day of term.

Two weeks later, he found Dan on his doorstep, face like a lost puppy, hid beneath his hood, and watched as he ran away into the rain (the squished letter in Phil’s hands.) On Saturday, Dotty noticed the change in his mood, like she always did. He’d been scrunching his brow sunconsciously, confused, conflicted thoughts swimming around his head. Dotty pressed a single finger to the indented line.

“What’s worrying you, Philip?”

Back then, he’d sighed and ignored the pent up frustration he had over Dan to instead comment on the growth spurts boys had and whine over his own skinny arms. Now, months later (and after that damned conversation with Jon), Dotty notices his low mood and pokes his brow in the exact same way. Except she slides right up beside him and boldly asks ‘Boy trouble?’ Phil sighs quietly, the box of new arrivals at his feet.

Right.

“You miss him, don’t you?”

“Yeah...” Phil can’t believe he’s getting into this. Dotty perks up visibly. “But the question is whether people really change or not.”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think they do.”

“They do! Never try and fix a man.”

Dotty waves off Mags, hidden from view at the till. “Don’t listen to her,” she whispers, “third husband and all.”

Phil busies himself with sorting. Dotty joins him, all the while Phil can hear her thinking.

“I think everyone deserves a second chance. Maybe even a third. Fourth is pushing it. Get this boy on his own and see what he has to say for himself then.”

“Maybe...” Phil muses, not meeting Dotty’s eyes. He knows she’s smiling kindly. He’s changed his mind; he doesn’t want to get into this. He passes her two golf clubs and she gasps.

“Oh no! Not golf clubs! When we get golf clubs you just _know_ some poor old man’s died. Dreadful, nasty omens, they are...”

She wanders off, tutting.

Some part of Phil had chosen to be numb, after September. He can see that now, in contrast to this sudden rush of feeling. He’d seen the new Dan Howell at school, cool and mean, and then he’d seen Dan at his door, sweet and lost, and both had rejected him. Some part of Phil hadn’t wanted to accept that; the rejection, or the prospect of losing Dan forever. Phil lingered without even knowing it; Phil waited. Everyone would talk about Dan, and Phil would shrug with disinterest. But Phil thought about him constantly, lying and pretending to himself. Having Dan back in his life again, no matter that they’ve only shared a single conversation, not even that...it gives him hope. Terrible, terrible hope. The stranger and the friend collide. Phil is confronted with making a final decision, with action. And he can’t help but think: does Dan want me again? Did he ever stop wanting me?

He’s never been so tired. Rethinking everything over and over again. Arguing with himself over perseverance versus self-protection. Right and wrong. Destiny and doom. (And he tells Jon _he’s_ dramatic...)

...Jon, who’s avoided him for three days straight. Phil knew he would snap. He comes up to Phil in silent study.

“Have you made your decision?” Jon whispers hotly, leaning over Phil. Calmly, Phil puts down his pen.

“Do you see Dan beside me?”

“Howell. But do you want him to be?”

“That’s his decision too-“

“-But that’s not the question-“

“ _Shhh_.” The teacher pops her head out of the office, eyes fierce on them both. Jon bows his head. Slowly, he drags a seat across and sits down. Phil attempts to continue his revision but just ends up scribbling absentmindedly.

“I have news about him.”

“I don’t care,” Phil whispers back, anxious of the people beside them. One girl pointedly pushes her earphones in. Jon is leaning so close their arms touch.

“You will care.”

“Why do you care?”

“I overheard the Jessicas talking about it. Jessica with the fringe said-“

“ _SHHH. Silent_ study.”

Phil hops his chair slightly to the left. Jon huffs. “Fine.” Phil practically pushes his nose into the paper so he doesn’t have to see Jon’s slow, hesitant departure in the corner of his eye. Come Friday – Option’s Evening for the year 11’s – Jon is back to avoiding him, sternly sat, arms crossed, at the science table. He doesn’t engage Phil’s attempt at eye contact as he crosses over to the English table, where he’s been asked to help talk through the A-Level course.

The evening passes slowly, with Phil mostly talking to the parents instead of the students, who hang non-committedly to the side. He glances at Jon from time to time, but receives no response. It’s reaching the last hour when Phil hears a hurried clatter of heels and looks up to see a face he’s quite familiar with, though has never met in person: Dan’s mother. His heart lurches to his throat. She’s charging straight at him, and it’s no surprise that languishing behind her is a slow-walking Dan Howell, hands in his pockets and eyes on his feet. Phil tries to swallow. He can feel Jon looking now.

“ _Dan_ ,” Mrs Howell hisses. She motions for him to move faster. She’s in a tailored suit and is still wearing a lanyard. Dan is no longer in his uniform. Phil doesn’t mistake it when Dan glances around the room, scoping out the students who could be watching. When he sees Phil he blinks once but says nothing. He lets his mum pull him by the arm.

“Hi,” she greets the English teacher, smiling politely. She’s slightly out of breath, but quickly gathers herself. Phil’s memory of her, when he’d known Dan, is of her shoe rack and smart coats in the hallway at Dan’s house, the furthest Phil ever went inside, and of her face appearing around the doorframe, telling Dan to go to bed when they were video chatting. That, and all the ways she criticized Dan, told to Phil by Dan: how she showed no interest, how she was never home...how small Dan felt around her. Phil smiles politely back, his body suddenly tense.

“We’re not too late are we? Couldn’t get this one out the door.”

Dan twists his lips, looking at his feet again, fidgeting. Phil’s stomach turns, picturing the scene at the door. Things used to get nasty; both mother and son could have quite the temper. It used to drain Dan. He’d be extra cuddly, at those times.

Phil blushes hotly and tries to concentrate.

“Not at all! Hello there, Daniel.” Phil’s English teacher, Mr Adamson, tilts his head to try and catch Dan’s eyes. It doesn’t surprise Phil that most teachers seem to know Dan. “Have a look through the course outline... Phil, do you have one over there?”

Phil startles at being spoken to. He’d took to trying to catch Dan’s eye too. He has the strongest desire to meet his eyes and send some form of silent communication, of reassurance. He fumbles with the papers and books on the table until he retrieves the sheet he wants.

“And feel free to ask our resident student here any questions! Phil’s top of his year.”

Mrs Howell’s eyes look over him curiously. Maybe she remembers him. Either way, Phil flushes hotter and kicks his heel against the leg of his stool. He watches as Dan flinches away as his mother huddles close so they can both read the course outline. They mutter quietly to each other – sharply, too – but Phil doesn’t have the strength to look away. His English teacher begins tidying their table, humming absentmindedly, while Jon’s eyes remain fierce from afar.

“What subjects do you take?”

Phil has to swallow thickly.

“English...obviously, um, and Art, French, Media.”

“Dan’s interested in Media. Do you find they balance well?”

“Y-Yeah.” Dan’s looking up at him now. Phil’s heart is pounding at an excessive rate. He’s made much more articulate and helpful explanations than this, but all he can think is how Dan’s stare feels on his skin. (Intense.)

“What else...is he- are you thinking of taking?”

Dan looks absurdly sweet. Maybe it’s having his mother beside him. His eyes seem extra big and hopeless, tugging on all of Phil’s heartstrings. His limbs are jittery and his skin appears obnoxiously soft, his hair fluffy and slightly damp from a shower. It’s like there’s suddenly no barrier between them, and Dan is letting Phil in- But then he flicks his hair from his eyes and looks away.

“Probably Geography and Law,” he drawls in that tone of his: like he’s above everything, and laughing at everyone. “Maybe Drama.”

“Drama,” Phil latches, heart thudding. He has the urge to be somewhat mean, to bring Dan down a peg, to tease him. “You were so scared opening night of the Alice musical...” (... _It was cute._ )

Dan reacts immediately. “Yeah, because I was in band and was shit at it.”

“You weren’t.”

Dan scowls furiously, which almost makes Phil laugh, as a response to a compliment. His whole body feels on edge and he thinks Dan feels the same. There’s too much tension, surely, for him to not feel the same.

“That’s right! You were in the school play with Daniel.”

Phil grins over at Dan’s mother, mostly to piss Dan off. He doesn’t know where this attitude is coming from, but it’s sort of thrilling. “Yes, with the starring role of Playing Card No 5.”

Dan’s mother smiles primly. “Yes, well, Drama is an option.” She says it like it’s not. Phil can see his English teacher trying to cut in and say something. Dan is back to looking at the floor, the space between his feet, angling his body away distractedly. Or nervously. He brings his sleeve to his mouth, probably biting a fingernail. Phil’s runaway energy to piss Dan off crashes utterly. Or rather, it switches tracks to be directed elsewhere.

“We’re looking at Law for university,” ( _We_?) “So we think English would be good to support that-“

Phil doesn’t know where the bravery comes from. Maybe it’s Dan. Dan always made him brave.

“-Drama would be good to support that. It’d teach public speaking skills and creativity, which I think would help win, like, a case.” (His confidence falters as Mrs Howell’s face grows cold.) “And Dan’s creative.”

His voice turns small at the end. He hears his teacher chime in with agreement, but his focus is pulled to Dan, whose swivelled back round to stare at him with the sweet expression from earlier. Slowly, he drops the hand from his face. Fear washes up in Phil’s chest, but does Dan look annoyed? He’s not smirking, is he? (He looks shocked, almost grateful.)

“We want a good balance,” is all Dan’s mother says at the end of Mr Adamson’s speech. She says it curtly, and then places a light hand on Dan’s shoulder. It looks heavy, somehow. Phil’s stomach curls with anger. He wants to slap it away. Phil doesn’t expect Dan to look back at him when they wander on to the next table, but he does. Phil practically burns. He catches Jon’s eyes across the room but can do nothing but stare forlornly. He simmers with the immediate memory of the interaction, regret already spiking, and longing so firmly embedded in the tissue of his heart.

Phil doesn’t think Dan notices his staring as he and his mum walk the rest of the room, but Dan notices, of course. He looks back, _again_ , when he’s leaving the hall. He ducks his head subtlety, eyes slanted to where Phil has sprung a pen open by accident and is now groping around, collecting the pieces. A small smile weaves itself onto his face, but Phil doesn’t get to see it. It’s gone in a second, anyway.

That night, Phil finds his mum in the kitchen washing up and lopes his arms around her, nuzzling his face into the back of her neck. She chuckles, reaching up to pat his arm with a soapy hand.

“Hello love. Did the evening go well?”

Phil wants to feel smaller in the moment. He’s got so much taller than his mum. He nods against her. She pats his arm again.

“That’s good,” she responds softy, tired. They stand there in comfortable silence, in no hurry to move or speak.

“I saw Dan.”

There’s a pause. He wonders if his mum has heard him at all, being that he mumbled into her hair, but after a pause she rEllie’s.

“How was he?”

Though she keeps her voice quiet and casual, there’s an obvious sensitivity to how she chooses her words.

“Fine. Choosing his A-Levels.”

“Yes, I suppose he would be now.”

Silence again.

“You two were such good friends.”

He barely holds back the heavy sigh. “Were,” he repeats.

Slowly, he extracts himself from the hug and moves to grab a tea towel. He begins drying a mug wordlessly. His mum moves back into action beside him, she washes off a fork and then her shoulders drop. She leans over, resting her head on Phil’s arm.

“You don’t have to tell me, but were you more than friends?”

Phil always finds anything to do with his sexuality embarrassing. He came out to his mum in the week before prom, because he’d been thinking about Dan again and figured his mum knew anyway. She’d been silently supporting him for months, watching him be miserable and focus on his schoolwork, not mentioning anything to do with Dan since his birthday. He felt like he owed her, and it was the end of school – he was moving on, growing up. Whilst Dan seemed to be running away from himself, Phil knew with further clarity who he really was. He wanted to honour that too. Awkwardly, he came into his mum’s bedroom in the evening and fumbled through the confession. She definitely already knew, or assumed. She dropped her needle and thread and hugged him tightly and then told him ‘oh my boy, you’re okay. You’ll always be my baby, I’ll always love you the same.’

This is the second time they’ve ever really touched on the subject. He noticed she pointed out handsome men off the TV more, but other than that their first, 2 hour long conversation was the only time they talked explicitly about Phil liking boys.

Phil almost wants to cry. He feels so, so fragile suddenly.

“I think so. I don’t know. We were young, but I-I- at some point I realised.”

“And...did he? Like you too?”

“I don’t know.”

There was and is so much unsaid between them. Maybe it’s Phil. It took him longer than it should to confirm his mother’s suspicions; it was only in Year 11 – _last year_ – on the day he and Jon practiced putting up their tent in his garden that he came out to Jon. They were lying parallel to one another in sleeping bags, having decided to sleep out in the garden, full of Haribo and strawberry laces, when the air changed and Jon told Phil about his alter-ego, _Josephine_. He was already ugly crying in the darkness and Phil, awkward as ever, wasn’t sure how exactly to comfort him other than confirming how it didn’t matter to Phil if Jon liked to dress like a girl. Jon, sniffing and now laughing at himself, asked ‘You’re gay too, right?’, and after a small hesitation Phil simply replied ‘Yeah.’ That one small word then opened up a whole side of Jon and new dialogue between them. So much so, Phil almost regretted it. He was suddenly aware of new lingo and was being woofed at. It wasn’t long until Jon got Phil confessing his feelings for Dan.

Phil never came out to Dan. They never confronted the subject.

“Were you and Jon...?”

“What? Ever together? No mum.”

“Okay, okay...just asking.”

Turning her head, she kisses his shoulder.

“You’re a good boy.” Phil looks down at his hands, still holding the tea towel. His mum shifts up and lifts her chin. “I know I shouldn’t, but I hope Dan regrets what he did to you.”

“Mum, he didn’t do anything exactly...”

“He hurt you,” she says more sternly than Phil expects. She shakes her head, staring determinedly at him. “Nobody hurts my baby.”

“ _Mum.”_

“Sorry.” She shoves a fork into his hands. “Do you want to talk about something else? How are your other friends? Jon?”

“ _Ugh_.”

Phil tells his mum about how Jon’s been avoiding him, about the ultimatum he gave him, and she huffs and tuts and chimes in with agreement where necessary, agreeing that it’s silly and unfair. She also mentions that he’s only being protective, both of Phil and of himself, being that Dan also hurt him in the past... And Phil knows all this himself, but he’s had enough of people asking him to choose. He wants to throw his hands up and just live without having to decide anything, not between Jon and Dan, and not between wanting Dan and giving Dan up for good. He’ll just settle with living in the in-between, in the wanting and not having. He’ll play Mario Kart and be half content.

The next day – Saturday – Phil does just that. He goes round to Cock’s house, where he and Smithy invited him to a Mario Kart marathon. He hadn’t seen much of them during the week either; Jon sort of herded them away from Phil, and so Phil was left with awkward meetings as they passed in the corridors. He was beginning to feel like somewhat of a loner, so more than welcomed an evening where he could leave Dan and Jon and all that crap outside.

Except, he can’t. Because Smithy had lied to him and Jon is right there when he knocks on the door.

He’s scowling.

“They tricked me too.”

“This is an intervention.”

“We’re ordering pizza, you want dough balls or cookies?”

Cocks has quite a large house including an outside shed w plastic blow up chairs and an old TV. This is their main hang out. Cocks’ parents are just as chill as their son. Plugging in the portable heater, they gather around the TV and hand out the controllers. An awkward silence hangs in the air. A deep frown is permanently etched onto Jon’s forehead. The games begin, with Cocks giggling as usual, Smithy getting frustrated as usual, and Jon talking loudly, as usual. Except between firing shells he’s talking _at_ Phil, about everything Phil doesn’t want to talk about.

“You know I’m right! I’m only – trying – to help you!” (BOOM! Lightning strikes and they’re all reduced to tiny versions of themselves.)

“You’re just being blinded by your feelings again. You’ve got this-“ (shell) “- _nostalgic,_ romanticised idea of Howell. I just-“ (race to finish line...)  “-don’t want him to hurt us again!”

 Phil loses. Scrunching up his face, he leans over and hits Jon with the controller.

“Hey! Violence!”

“You distracted me!”

“Well you’re not listening to me!”

“I _am_ ,” Phil says with defeat, slumping back in his seat. “I get it.”

“You never let me tell you the news. Dan cheated on Lucy. Or like, I don’t know if they were ever together-together, but he was seeing her and last Saturday she caught him fingering Hanna. Your Hanna.”

“Hanna was never mine.”

“He was caught fingering her on the train!”

Phil sighs loudly and closes his eyes. Smithy is sitting with disinterested, crossed arms, impatiently waiting to finish the tournament. Cocks is shovelling Pringles into his mouth. Phil drags a hand over his face, trying with all his might not to imagine the visuals Jon has just described.

“I’m listening, I just don’t care.”

“That’s a lie, of course you care. It’s Dan. But see that’s the type of boy he is.”

Phil continues to hide.

“You see?” Jon prompts. “I told you so.”

The silence is awkward again. The crunching of Pringles in Cocks’ mouth is obscenely loud.

“Fine. You win. I lose again.”

He hadn’t meant to say that, and especially not so bitterly. Jon looks shocked. Instantly embarrassed, Phil gets up, head hung, and walks out the door. The toilet is back inside the house, and when he gets there he slithers down to sit on the floor. He presses his palms to his eyes. His belly grumbles loudly, but he doesn’t want to go back for pizza. _God,_ he can’t rub out the image of Dan and Hanna. He tries and his contact lens falls out.

There’s more grumbling and aching in his stomach. He knows what it is. It definitely can’t be filled with pizza.

The summer before Year 11. Phil had spent almost every day with Dan. One day, in the last week of summer, he couldn’t because he was filming for his summer Media project. They were filming at Hanna’s house. (Back then, she was a quiet Muslim girl. She’s since removed the headscarf and is now a party girl, a repeat offender to the scandalous rumours that pass around the school.) (Is she happier? Phil can’t tell.) They spent all day on it, partly because every productive hour was punctuated by two unproductive ones. There were five of them in the group, and by the end of the day Phil was exhausted from the socialising, though his chest was warm with laughter. (It had been an advert against smoking. Phil had played the dad, Hanna the mum.)

They waved goodbye at the door, but when Phil turned to step outside Hanna touched his arm. Her fingers brushed just slightly down his forearm. 

“Wait. Give me your number.”

Phil’s eyes went wide before he could stop them. She blushed but persevered, a soft smile on her lips.

“I mean, so we can coordinate.” She tilted her head, long eyelashes blinking a little unnaturally. “Since I need to send you the footage...so you can finish editing.”

(He could just send his email over Facebook. He could ask for the SD card now-)

Was this flirting?

“Sure.”

They swapped phones and she wrote her name into his with an ‘xo’ at the end. (That’s a normal girl thing, isn’t it?) He wrote ‘Phil from Media’, which she giggled at. The memory of her smile, long lingering as she watched him walk backwards away from her house, followed him home. He almost tripped over himself as he pushed back through the gate (he did; he tripped right over a stone and she laughed.)

He already had Dan’s number in his phone, titled ‘Dan, super best friend forever’ (which Dan wrote.) He didn’t know how his name looked in Dan’s phone. He wanted to know now. He dialled his number without thinking too much.

“Buffy?”

“On my way,” Dan smiled. Phil could hear the smile in his voice.

Dan was already inside, being fed biscuits by his mum, when Phil got back. He smiled up goofily, catching the crumbs that fell from his mouth.

“I’m her favourite child now,” Dan teased and Phil’s mum laughed from the kitchen.

“Never,” Phil quipped, allowing Dan to stretch up and feed Phil a Custard Cream. He could feel his mum watching them. It made his chest tight, how she watched as Dan brushed away a crumb from Phil’s lips.

Dan sprung up and dusted off his hands.

“You’re not going to watch more of that show, are you?”

“Mum it’s the best show ever.”

“It is.”

“See, Dan agrees.”

She sighed. “You’ll tell me how the filming went later?”

“Mmhmm!” Phil called as he pushed Dan out of the room and they scurried upstairs.

Phil had already told Dan how his day went before they started the new episode, but he hadn’t said about Hanna. Halfway through the second episode, with the sun having set and their faces glowing with the light from the screen, he started being distracted by how to say it. He didn’t know why the words formed so difficultly in his throat. Dan felt distractingly close, their shoulders touching, his body warm as ever. Phil ended up speaking at the exact moment a vampire screamed.

“What?”

“I think Hanna likes me.”

There was a short silence.

“What makes you think that?”

The screaming and fighting blurred into the background, though they kept their eyes on the action.

“She touched my arm.”

“I can touch your arm, Phil.” And he did, gently. Phil practically shivered. He could see Dan’s big eyes looking up at his face.

“But she didn’t- she did it like this.” And turning with his head down, Phil demonstrated. As he brushed his hand down, he turned his fingers over, briefly touching the bare skin where the short sleeve of Dan’s top ended. Dan’s eyes flicked back to Phil’s face, but Phil couldn’t look at him.

“No one’s ever flirted with me before.”

“I don’t believe that,” Dan whispered. Phil was starting to feel hot and overwhelmed. He shoved his phone into Dan’s hands, Hanna’s contact open.

“She gave you her number?” Dan concluded slowly, eyes fixed to her name.

The fight on screen had turned bloody. Buffy stabbed and stabbed the vampire with her stake.

“Do you like her?”

“No.” He said it so instantly he surprised himself. “I mean, I don’t think so.”

“You’d know, if you liked someone,” Dan whispered again. He was staring at Phil again. Phil only shrugged and focused back on the episode, praying Dan would too. For the rest of the night, Dan was oddly quiet. But then, so was Phil. However, when summer ended, it soon became clear quite how invested Dan was with the idea of Phil and Hanna. He asked Phil to point her out, then frowned and commented on how ‘pretty’ she was (“Oh...she’s pretty.”) He kept asking whether they’d talked again. Every time the answer was ‘no.’ He asked a number of times if Phil liked her really. The answer was still no. Phil didn’t understand what Dan wanted to hear. Soon, Jon overheard and promptly complained about being the last to know.

“Dan, this isn’t Year 7. Stop being annoying. Literally nothing happened, they didn’t kiss in spin the bottle, they haven’t held _hands_. They swapped numbers. Why are you so obsessed?”

“I’m not,” Dan pouted, kicking a stone as they walked home from school. “I’m just- If Phil likes her, then I want to encourage him.”

“I don’t-”

“Phil’s fine on his own. If he needs help flirting, he can ask me.”

“I don’t-“

“But you’ve not dated anyone. Have you?”

Jon turned impossibly red.

“You haven’t either.”

“I have.”

“Relationships before Year 10 don’t count.”

Dan smiled a little smugly. “I’m a very experienced hand-holder.”

Phil chuckled. He must have been paying Dan too much attention (and looking at him too fondly – he was really quite curious to know how many people Dan had kissed) because Jon slapped his arm.

“Funny,” Jon deadpanned at Dan. “C’mon, Phil, you owe me a Fanta Orange.”

“Do I?” Phil asked, helpless as Jon dragged him quite literally to the road crossing.

Jon rolled his eyes. “Always so forgetful. What would you do without me?”

Dan waved as Phil looked over his shoulder, a small smile on his face.

“God,” Jon muttered as soon as they were out of earshot. “He’s so needy.” (Which Phil found amusing, considering it was Jon who’d demanded Phil buy him a drink.) “I think he’s jealous you’re paying someone else even an ounce of your attention.”

“I’m not even, we haven’t talked-“ Phil tried, but the idea of _jealously_ struck him. He hadn’t thought of that before. Could Dan be jealous? Without really thinking about why he liked it, Phil began encouraging Dan’s fascination with Hanna. He’d say how nice she looked one day, that they talked in maths another (a lie.) Dan would look a strange mixture of fascinated and sad; a balance of ‘tell me more’ and ‘tell me something else.’ It went too far the day Phil didn’t answer ‘we’re just friends’ but instead said ‘I like someone else.’

“You’re jealous.”

They were lounging on Phil’s bed, like they did so often. This time they’d been playing ‘MASH’, a game Dan suddenly wanted to remember. Phil’s marriage options had been Buffy, Willow, his English teacher, and Hanna. Dan looked up from the paper in shock, mid crossing out Hanna’s name. Phil’s chest burst with warmth at the look on Dan’s face.

“W-You’re not serious?”

“I’ll always wanna spend the most time with you,” Phil smiled to himself, tracing his pencil back over the tally marks in the middle of his page.

“So you...don’t like someone else?”

Phil shook his head. There was a strange silence and then Dan smacked him with a pillow. Phil looked up at him with an amused, crooked smile. Dan’s eyes softened.

“I’ll always wanna spend the most time with you too, idiot.”

“You’ll have to fight Buffy now,” Phil teased, his voice low and tender all of a sudden. He motioned his eyes to the remaining name on his page. “Think you’ll be losing that fight, Danny boy.”

Dan was sat up on his knees now, Phil’s one stretched out leg bracketing him. He raised one eyebrow, which was immensely cute. (How pretty Dan was, how Phil could never take his eyes away when looking at him.)

“Don’t underestimate me, Philly. I’m Phil fan no1.” He bit his lip. “I’m not letting you go.”

Maybe it was an odd thing for a friend to say. Maybe Dan was aware of that.

“Even if I think it’s weird that you like me at all,” he added. He was always adding an insult to himself at the end of things. “Jon’s right, I am annoying.”

Phil shook his head.

“I’ve told you before, I don’t secretly hate you. I’ll never hate you.”

And Dan made him pinky promise it.

But it’s true about Hanna. At least it’s true that Phil is standing there watching Dan kiss her. It’s his last day of Year 11, so he’s got his tie like a bandana in his hair, his shirt open and trousers rolled up. He’s got Hanna leant back against the bike stand, his hand on the top of her bare thigh. The sun is high in the sky and everyone is joyful. Dan pulls back and it’s like prom all over again, how he catches Phil’s eyes with his hands still on a girl. He can’t decide if Dan looks desperate or if Phil is just seeing his own reflection in Dan’s eyes.

He could hate him, now. He could- but he doesn’t.

The headmaster’s car has been destroyed with silly string, this year‘s leavers prank. They’ve also bought in balloons, many left abandoned or lost and bumping along the corridors. They keep popping around Phil, bursting and deflating like how his heart feels.

How could he let himself get here again?

He ignores the Year 11’s as best he can. By 1pm, he knows they’re leaving the grounds to go get wasted at the local park. He ignores his friends, and skips lunch to revise. He stays in his form room, the old science lab, and tries not to think. Really, really tries. He’s got his earphones in, music turned loud, pretending to focus on the words on the page.

 _Fuck._ His pen’s run out. There’s more in the cupboard.

The lightbulb buzzes to life above his head. The cupboard is narrow and filled with precarious piles of books. He’s looking around when the light cuts out. Phil jumps and turns to see a shadowed figure in the doorway. He hardly has time to comprehend that its Dan.

Dan steps to him, breathing hard. His eyes flick over him. He grabs his shirt in two fists and for a moment Phil thinks he’s about to be punched. Dan pulls him close. His eyes are wild: angry, confused, tragic. Desperate, definitely.

What’s Phil to do? Not let Dan kiss him?

Dan shoves Phil back then grabs him again and kisses him. Hard. They fall into each other, wanting so hard it hurts. Phil pushes on Dan’s hands, still twisted in his shirt. Dan whines, their mouths breaking apart, not caring for the small string of saliva between them. His hands drop, compliant, and Phil takes hold of Dan’s head, kissing him harder. Dan turns pliant. Phil kisses him like he’s always wanted to, like he’ll never get the chance again. He leans over him, hands skimming down Dan’s neck, down his chest, under his shirt to the warm, soft skin of his waist. _So good. So good so good so good-_ He touches Dan like he can’t believe he has him, that this is happening.

The kiss is bruising. They’re flushed, hot. Dan’s arms that had fallen limp and helpless at his sides wind up around Phil’s neck – claiming, adoring. They stumble into the bookshelves, books clattering at their feet. Phil fists his hands in Dan’s hair, letting Dan collide into him, chest to chest, his leg between Phil’s, and Dan is moaning, moaning, moaning- Dan squeezes Phil tight.

Phil pushes Dan fully back with a force and anger he didn’t know he had. His heart is pounding – it’s in his throat. He can barely breath; he can’t talk. They stand, panting, staring at one another. Phil’s earphones fall out, tinny music bringing everything back to reality.

It’s all been real.

Dan looks terrified as Phil stands up slowly and leans over him to turn the light on. Dan’s lips look kissed. His cheeks are red and his eyes glassy. Everything in Phil is tugged and drawn towards him. But he moves back against the bookshelf.

Dan licks his lip and swallows. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but nothing comes out.

Blinking quickly, he steps tentatively closer, hand raised.

“C-Can I...?”

Dan slides one hand to Phil’s neck and Phil nods. This is his Dan again. _His_ Dan. _His_. They kiss again, like they started years ago, like they don’t plan to ever stop, Dan fitting right back into Phil’s space as if he never left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long! I will finish these boys' story I promise:) sorry about any messy bits


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